E欧洲文明之所以独一无二，是因为它是唯一一个对世界其他地区产生深远影响的文明。它通过征服和殖民、凭借其经济实力、凭借其思想的力量，以及凭借其拥有其他文明梦寐以求的资源，实现了这一目标。如今，世界上每个国家都在运用科学发现及其衍生技术，而科学正是欧洲的发明。

EUROPEAN CIVILISATION IS UNIQUE because it is the only civilisation which has imposed itself on the rest of the world. It did this by conquest and settlement; by its economic power; by the power of its ideas; and because it had things that everyone else wanted. Today every country on earth uses the discoveries of science and the technologies that flow from it, and science was a European invention.

欧洲文明初期由三个要素构成：

At its beginning European civilisation was made up of three elements:

1. 古希腊和古罗马的文化
2. the culture of Ancient Greece and Rome
3. 基督教是犹太教的一个奇特分支。
4. Christianity, which is an odd offshoot of the religion of the Jews, Judaism
5. 入侵罗马帝国的日耳曼战士的文化。
6. the culture of the German warriors who invaded the Roman Empire.

欧洲文明是一种混合体：这一点的重要性将在我们继续探讨的过程中逐渐显现。

European civilisation was a mixture: the importance of this will become clear as we go on.

如果我们探寻哲学、艺术、文学、数学、科学、医学和政治思想的起源，所有这些智力活动最终都会回到古希腊。

IF WE LOOK FOR THE ORIGINS of our philosophy, our art, our literature, our maths, our science, our medicine and our thinking about politics—in all these intellectual endeavours we are taken back to Ancient Greece.

鼎盛时期的希腊并非一个统一的国家，而是由一系列小城邦组成，也就是现在所说的城邦。每个城邦都只有一个中心城镇，周围环绕着一片土地；所有人都可以步行进入城镇。一天之内。希腊人渴望融入城邦，就像我们加入俱乐部一样：那是一种社群。最早的民主政体正是在这些小城邦中萌芽的。它们并非代议制民主；公民无需选举议员。所有男性公民聚集一处，商讨公共事务，投票表决法律和政策。

In its great days Greece was not one state; it was made up of a series of little states: city-states, as they are now called. There was a single town with a tract of land around it; everyone could walk into the town in a day. The Greeks wanted to belong to a state as we belong to a club: it was a fellowship. It was in these small city-states that the first democracies emerged. They were not representative democracies; you did not elect a member of parliament. All male citizens gathered in one place to talk about public affairs, to vote on the laws and to vote on policy.

随着希腊城邦人口的增长，他们派遣移民到地中海其他地区建立殖民地。在如今的土耳其、北非沿岸，甚至远至西班牙、法国南部和意大利南部，都有希腊人的定居点。正是在意大利，当时还非常落后的罗马人——一个围绕罗马城的小城邦——第一次遇到了希腊人，并开始向他们学习。

As these Greek city-states grew in population, they sent people to start colonies in other parts of the Mediterranean. There were Greek settlements in what is now Turkey, along the coast of North Africa, even as far west as Spain, southern France and southern Italy. And it was there—in Italy—that the Romans, who were then a very backward people, a small city-state around Rome, first met the Greeks and began to learn from them.

随着时间的推移，罗马人建立了一个庞大的帝国，囊括了希腊及其所有殖民地。北部边界是两条大河：莱茵河和多瑙河，但有时疆域会超出这两条河的范围。西部是大西洋。英格兰是罗马帝国的一部分。罗马帝国疆域辽阔，但不包括苏格兰和爱尔兰。其南部是北非沙漠。东部边界最为模糊，因为那里存在着多个敌对帝国。该帝国环绕地中海，仅包含如今欧洲的一部分，而涵盖了欧洲以外的大部分地区：土耳其、中东和北非。

In time the Romans built a huge empire that encompassed Greece and all the Greek colonies. In the north the boundaries were two great rivers, the Rhine and the Danube, though sometimes these were exceeded. In the west was the Atlantic Ocean. England was part of the Roman Empire but not Scotland or Ireland. To the south were the deserts of North Africa. In the east the boundary was most uncertain because here were rival empires. The empire encircled the Mediterranean Sea; it included only part of what is now Europe and much that is not Europe: Turkey, the Middle East, North Africa.

罗马人在军事上胜过希腊人。他们在法律方面也胜过希腊人，并以此治理帝国。他们在工程技术方面也胜过希腊人，这在军事和帝国治理中都发挥了重要作用。但在其他所有方面，他们都承认希腊人的优越，并盲目地模仿他们。罗马精英阶层成员能说希腊语和拉丁语（罗马人的语言）；他们会送儿子去雅典上大学，或者雇佣希腊奴隶在家教孩子。所以，当我们说罗马帝国是希腊罗马式的时，是因为罗马人自己希望如此。

The Romans were better than the Greeks at fighting. They were better than the Greeks at law, which they used to run their empire. They were better than the Greeks at engineering, which was useful both for fighting and running an empire. But in everything else they acknowledged that the Greeks were superior and slavishly copied them. A member of the Roman elite could speak both Greek and Latin, the language of the Romans; he sent his son to Athens to university or he hired a Greek slave to teach his children at home. So when we talk about the Roman Empire being Greco-Roman it is because the Romans wanted it that way.

几何学是展现古希腊人智慧的最快捷径。学校里教的几何学是古希腊的。很多人可能已经忘记了。 几何就是这样，我们从基础开始。它从几个基本定义入手，逐步构建。起点是点，希腊人将其定义为有位置而无大小。当然，点是有大小的，比如纸上点的宽度，但几何是一种虚构的世界，一个纯粹的世界。其次，线有长度而无宽度。接下来，直线被定义为连接两点的最短线段。从这三个定义出发，我们可以得出圆的定义：首先，圆是由一条线段构成的封闭图形。但是，如何定义圆呢？仔细想想，圆其实很难定义。我们可以这样定义：在这个图形中存在一个点，一个唯一的点，从这个点向图形作的所有直线长度都相等。

Geometry is the quickest way to demonstrate how clever the Greeks were. The geometry taught in school is Greek. Many will have forgotten  it, so let’s start with the basics. That is how geometry works; it starts with a few basic definitions and builds on them. The starting point is a point, which the Greeks defined as having location but no magnitude. Of course it does possess magnitude, there is the width of the dot on the page, but geometry is a sort of make-believe world, a pure world. Second: a line has length but no breadth. Next, a straight line is defined as the shortest line joining two points. From these three definitions you can create a definition of a circle: in the first place, it is a line making a closed figure. But how do you formulate roundness? If you think about it, roundness is very hard to define. You define it by saying there is a point within this figure, one point, from which straight lines drawn to the figure will always be of equal length.

除了圆之外，还有无限延伸而不相交的平行线，各种各样的三角形，以及正方形、长方形和其他规则图形。这些由线构成的图形都被定义，它们的特征被揭示，并且它们的相交和重叠所产生的各种可能性也被探索。所有结论都基于先前已建立的结论而得出。例如，利用平行线的性质，可以证明三角形的内角和为180度（见方框）。

Along with circles, there are parallel lines that extend forever without meeting, and triangles in all their variety, and squares and rectangles and other regular forms. These objects, formed by lines, are all defined, their characteristics revealed and the possibilities arising from their intersectio and overlapping explored. Everything is proved from what has been established before. For example, by using a quality of parallel lines, you can show that the angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees (see box).

几何学是一个简洁、优雅、逻辑严密的体系，令人赏心悦目，而且非常优美。优美？古希腊人认为它很美，而他们之所以这样认为，恰恰揭示了古希腊人的思维方式。古希腊人学习几何并非仅仅将其作为一种练习（这也是我们在学校学习几何的原因），也并非出于实用目的。几何学在测量或航海中有着广泛的应用。他们将几何学视为探索宇宙基本本质的指南。当我们环顾四周时，会被眼前景象的丰富多彩所震撼：不同的形状，不同的颜色。各种各样的事物同时发生——随机的，混乱的。希腊人相信这一切背后一定存在某种简单的解释。在所有这些多样性之下，必然存在某种简单、规律、合乎逻辑的事物来解释一切。某种类似于几何学的东西。

Geometry is a simple, elegant, logical system, very satisfying, and beautiful. Beautiful? The Greeks found it beautiful and that they did so is a clue to the Greek mind. The Greeks did geometry not just as an exercise, which is why we did it at school, nor for its practical uses in surveying or navigation. They saw geometry as a guide to the fundamental nature of the universe. When we look around us, we are struck with the variety of what we see: different shapes, different colours. A whole range of things is happening simultaneously—randomly, chaotically. The Greeks believed there was some simple explanation for all this. That underneath all this variety there must be something simple, regular, logical which explains it all. Something like geometry.

古希腊人做科学的方式与我们不同，他们不采用假设和实验验证 的方法。他们认为，只要集中精力认真思考，就能找到正确答案。因此，他们依靠的是一套充满灵感的猜测体系。一位古希腊哲学家说，所有物质都由水构成，这足以说明他们当时多么渴望找到一个简单的答案。另一位哲学家说，所有物质都由四种元素构成：土、火、气和水。还有一位哲学家说，所有物质实际上都由他称之为原子的微小粒子构成——他似乎找到了答案。他的这一灵感之举，在二十世纪被我们重新审视。

The Greeks did not do science as we do, with hypotheses and testing by experiment. They thought if you got your mind into gear and thought hard you would get the right answer. So they proceeded by a system of inspired guesses. One Greek philosopher said all matter is made up of water, which shows how desperate they were to get a simple answer. Another philosopher said all matter is made up of four things: earth, fire, air and water. Another philosopher said all matter is actually made up of little things which he called atoms—and hit the jackpot. He made an inspired guess which we came back to in the twentieth century.

我们所知的科学始于400年前，比希腊晚了2000年。它的开端颠覆了当时仍占据权威地位的希腊科学的核心教义。然而，它之所以令希腊人感到不安，是因为它遵循了希腊人根深蒂固的直觉：答案应该简单、合乎逻辑且可以用数学来表达。伟大的十七世纪科学家牛顿和伟大的二十世纪科学家爱因斯坦都曾指出，只有答案简单，才能接近正确答案。他们都能够用描述物质组成和运动方式的数学方程式来给出答案 。

When science as we know it began 400 years ago, 2000 years after the Greeks, it began by upsetting the central teachings of Greek science, which remained the authority. But it upset the Greeks by following this Greek hunch that the answers would be simple and logical and mathematical. Newton, the great seventeenth-century scientist, and Einstein, the great twentieth-century scientist, both said you will only get close to a correct answer if your answer is simple. They were both able to give their answers in mathematical equations which described the composition of matter and how matter moves.

希腊人的猜测常常出错，而且错得离谱。他们最初认为答案会很简单，可以用数学和逻辑来解释，这种想法本身也可能是错的，但最终却被证明是正确的。这正是欧洲文明至今仍应感谢希腊人的最宝贵遗产。

The Greeks were often wrong in their guesses, very wrong. Their fundamental hunch that the answers would be simple, mathematical and logical could have been wrong too, but it turned out to be right. This is the greatest legacy that European civilisation still owes to the Greeks.

我们能解释为什么希腊人如此聪明吗？我认为不能。历史学家理应能够解释事物，但当他们遇到重大问题时——例如，为什么在这些小小的城邦里 ，会涌现出如此逻辑清晰、思维敏捷、洞察力敏锐的人——他们却无法给出令人信服的解释。和所有人一样，历史学家所能做的，也只有惊叹。

Can we explain why the Greeks were so clever? I don’t think we can. Historians are meant to be able to explain things but when they come up against the big things—why, for example, in these little city-states there were minds so logical, so agile, so penetrating—they have no convincing explanation. All historians can do, like anyone else, is wonder.

又一个奇迹出现了。我们即将讲到第二个元素。欧洲文化的融合。犹太人逐渐相信只有一位神。这是一种非常独特的观点。希腊人和罗马人普遍相信有多位神。犹太人则有着更为非凡的信仰，他们认为这位神特别眷顾他们，他们是上帝的选民。作为回报，犹太人必须遵守上帝的律法。律法的基础是十诫，由带领犹太人出埃及的摩西颁布。基督徒也保留了十诫，直到近代，十诫一直是西方道德的核心教义。人们按数字记住十诫。你可能会说某人绝不会违反第八诫 ，但他有时也会违反第七诫。以下是十诫的内容，记载于《圣经》第二卷《出埃及记》第20章。

Here is another miracle. We are coming to the second element in the European mix. The Jews came to believe that there was only one god. This was a very unusual view. The Greeks and Romans had the more common belief that there were many gods. The Jews had an even more extraordinary belief that this one god took special care of them; that they were God’s chosen people. In return, the Jews had to keep God’s law. The foundation of the law was the Ten Commandments, given to the Jews by Moses who had led them out of captivity in Egypt. Christians retained the Ten Commandments and they remained the central moral teaching in the West until recent times. People knew the commandments by number. You might say of someone that he would never break the eighth commandment but sometimes he broke the seventh. Here are the Ten Commandments, as recorded in the second book of the Bible, Exodus, Chapter 20.

十诫只是道德律法的开端。犹太人拥有一套非常复杂、详尽的律法体系，不仅涵盖了法律通常涉及的事项——犯罪、财产、继承、婚姻——还包括饮食、清洁、家庭管理以及如何在圣殿向神献祭。

The Ten Commandments were only the beginning of the moral law. The Jews had a very complex, detailed system of law which covers the matters law usually does—crime, property, inheritance, marriage—but also diet, cleanliness, the running of a household and how to make sacrifices to God at the temple.

虽然犹太人相信自己是上帝的选民，但他们的命运并非一帆风顺。他们屡遭羞辱，被征服，被掳流放；但他们从未怀疑过上帝的存在，也从未怀疑过上帝的眷顾。一旦灾难降临，他们便会反思自己是否没有正确地遵守律法，是否触怒了上帝。因此，在犹太教和基督教中，宗教与道德紧密相连，而并非所有宗教都是如此。罗马人和希腊人的神祇也曾有过不道德的行为，他们有婚外情，彼此算计。在罗马宗教中，神祇或许会施以惩罚，但通常并非因为道德上的过错；或许只是因为献祭的方式不对，或者献祭的次数不够。

Though the Jews believed they were the chosen people, they didn’t have a dream run. They were frequently humiliated; they were conquered and taken into exile; but they didn’t doubt that God existed or that he cared for them. If disaster struck they concluded that they had not been following the law properly, that they had offended God. So in the religion of the Jews, as in Christianity, religion and morality are closely linked, which is not the case with all religions. The Romans and Greeks had gods who acted immorally, who had affairs and plotted against each other. In the Roman religion the gods might punish, but usually not for any moral offence; it might be that you hadn’t sacrificed correctly, or often enough.

基督教的创始人耶稣是犹太人，他的第一批追随者也都是犹太人。耶稣传道时，犹太人再次失去了对国家的控制权；巴勒斯坦当时是罗马帝国的一个遥远行省。一些耶稣的追随者希望他能领导一场反抗罗马的起义。他的反对者试图诱使他发表这样的声明。他们问他：“我们是否应该向罗马纳税？”耶稣说：“给我一枚硬币，上面是谁的头像？”他们回答说：“凯撒的。”耶稣说：“凯撒的物当归给凯撒，神的物当归给神。”

Jesus, the founder of Christianity, was a Jew and his first followers were all Jews. When Jesus taught the Jews were again not in control of their country; Palestine was a distant province of the Roman Empire. Some of the followers of Jesus looked to him to lead a revolt against Rome. His opponents tried to trick him into a declaration to this effect. Should we pay taxes to Rome, they asked him. Hand me a coin, he said—whose image is on it? Caesar’s, they replied. Jesus said, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.’

耶稣非常了解犹太律法和教义，他的教导也由此发展而来。他教导的一部分内容是概括律法的精髓。其中一条概括是：你要尽心、尽性、尽意爱主你的神，又要爱邻舍如同自己。

Jesus knew the Jewish law and teaching very well and his own teaching grew out of this. Part of his teaching was to sum up the essence of the law. This was one of his summations: love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and love your neighbour as yourself.

耶稣的意思究竟是说你可以接受概要而忽略所有细节，还是说细节很重要——比如洁净、献祭等等——这一点并不清楚。但这份概要旨在引导读者了解最重要的内容。学者们对于耶稣究竟在多大程度上保留了犹太教的教义，或者说他突破了犹太教的界限，一直争论不休。但有一点是明确的：他以极其严苛的方式扩展了古老的道德教义，这些教义或许会让你觉得难以遵循。不妨想想他在马太福音第五章所记载的登山宝训中，是如何谈到爱你的仇敌的：

It is not clear whether Jesus was saying you can take the summary and forget all the detail. Or whether he was saying that the detail is important—about cleanliness, sacrifice and all the rest—but the summary is a guide to the most important things. Scholars argue about how far Jesus remained within Judaism or was breaking out of it. But one thing is clear: he extended the old moral teaching in ways which were very demanding and which you might think impossible to follow. Just consider what he said about loving your enemies in the Sermon on the Mount, as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 5:

这一次，耶稣将犹太教法典改造成了一套普世博爱的体系。

On this occasion, Jesus was transforming the Jewish code into a system of universal love.

耶稣只是当时众多教师和先知中的一位。他们引起了犹太教领袖的怀疑，而耶稣的遭遇更令犹太领袖与罗马人勾结，最终将他处死。但耶稣与其他教师不同，因为他死后复活了——至少他的信徒们是这么认为的。所以，他不仅仅是一位教师、一位先知或一位好人，这或许是今天许多信徒的信念。他的信徒们相信他是上帝的儿子，并且相信耶稣被钉十字架时发生了具有宇宙意义的事件。上帝牺牲自己，拯救人类免于永世的诅咒——这是人类原罪将邪恶带入世界的后果。如果你相信基督，你就能得救，死后不会堕入地狱之火，而是永远与上帝在天堂同在。

Jesus was only one of many teachers and prophets at this time. They aroused the suspicion of the leaders of the Jewish faith, and in Jesus’ case the leaders of the Jews co-operated with the Romans in having Jesus executed. But Jesus was different from these other teachers because after he was dead he came alive again—or so his followers believed. So he was not just a teacher, a prophet or a good man, which is probably the belief of many church-going people today. His followers believed that he was God’s son and that something of cosmic significance had happened when Jesus was crucified. God had sacrificed himself to save humankind from damnation, a consequence of man’s original sin which brought evil into the world. If you believed in Christ you could save yourself and after death you would not be condemned to hellfire but you would be forever with God in heaven.

这种宗教仅仅是犹太人的宗教，还是面向所有人的？耶稣耶稣去世后，信徒们在这个问题上产生了分歧。传统主义者认为，只有先成为犹太人，遵守旧约中为犹太人制定的所有严格规矩，才能成为基督徒。这其中就包括割礼，而割礼对成年男性来说是一种相当痛苦的手术。如果当初选择这条路，基督教就只能是犹太教的一个很小的分支，很可能早已消亡，或者至少不会产生什么重大影响。而另一方则占据了上风，他们认为基督教是一种全新的宗教。信徒不必先成为犹太人；所有律法的限制都可以废除；基督已经将我们从这一切中解救出来；他关于爱的教导超越了律法所能提供的一切。这正是保罗的观点，他是教会早期伟大的传教士，也被一些人认为是基督教的创始人。因为在耶稣去世时，基督教还只是犹太人的信仰。耶稣是犹太人，他的信徒也是犹太人，其中一些人希望保持这种现状。保罗最明确地指出，基督教是属于所有人的宗教，因此从那时起，基督教至少在理论上成为了世界性宗教。在短短三百年内，它就传播到了整个罗马帝国。

Was this religion just for the Jews or was it for everyone? Jesus’ followers after his death were divided on this question. The traditionalists said that you could only become a Christian if you became a Jew first and so followed all the strict rules that were laid down for the Jews in the Old Testament. That would have included circumcision, which for adult males is a rather painful operation. If this path had been taken, Christianity would have remained a very small sect of the Jewish faith and probably have died out or certainly been of no great significance. The other side won, the side that said, this is a totally new religion. You don’t have to become a Jew first; all the restrictions of the law can go; Christ has set us free from all that; his teaching about love surpasses anything that the law could offer. This is the view of Paul, the great early missionary of the church and, according to some, the founder of Christianity, because when Jesus died this faith was a Jewish affair only. Jesus was a Jew, his followers were Jews, some of whom wanted to keep it that way. It was Paul who most clearly said this is a religion for everyone and so from that time Christianity became, potentially at least, a world religion. Within 300 years it had spread right throughout the Roman Empire.

第三类人群是入侵罗马帝国的日耳曼战士。他们居住在北部边境，并在公元5世纪涌入。到公元476年，他们摧毁了罗马帝国的西部。正是在法国、西班牙和意大利，欧洲文明的融合才初具雏形。

The third group in the mixture are the German warriors who invaded the Roman Empire. They lived on the northern borders and in the 400s they flooded in. By 476 AD they had destroyed the empire in the west. It was here in France, Spain and Italy that the mixture of European civilisation first took shape.

日耳曼人不识字，也没有留下任何文字记录，因此我们对他们入侵之前的了解非常有限。最好的记载——或许并非第一手资料——出自公元1世纪罗马历史学家塔西佗之手。他描述了那些共同生活、并肩作战、以战斗为生的首领和同伴们：

The Germans were illiterate and left no written records, and so we have very little information about them before they invaded. The best account—probably not a first-hand account—is by a Roman historian, Tacitus, in the first century AD. He describes the chiefs and companions who lived and fought together and who lived for fighting:

300年后，正是这些人接管了罗马帝国。

These are the people who, 300 years later, took over the Roman Empire.

我们已经考察了这三个要素，现在让我们总结一下。希腊人认为世界是简单、合乎逻辑且可以用数学来解释的。基督教认为世界是邪恶的，只有基督才能拯救世人。而日耳曼武士则认为战斗充满乐趣。正是这看似矛盾的混合，最终造就了欧洲文明。

We have now examined the three elements. Let us summarise them. The Greek view was that the world is simple, logical and mathematical. The Christian view was that the world is evil, and Christ alone saves. The German warriors’ view was that fighting is fun. It is this unlikely mixture that comes together to make European civilisation.

这三个要素是如何结合在一起的呢？首先，让我们来看一下基督教与希腊罗马世界的联系。罗马当局曾多次试图消灭基督教。他们没收圣经；没收教会财产；逮捕并折磨基督徒；处决那些不肯否认基督的人。

HOW WERE THE THREE ELEMENTS brought together? First, consider Christianity’s connection with the Greco-Roman world. The Roman authorities from time to time tried to stamp out Christianity. They seized the holy books; they confiscated church property; they arrested and tortured Christians; they executed those who wouldn’t deny Christ.

罗马人通常非常宽容。他们统治的帝国由各种种族和宗教组成；只要你保持和平，罗马人就愿意让你走自己的路。你可以自治，可以信奉自己的宗教，但有一个例外：你必须向皇帝献祭。罗马人认为皇帝如同神明一般。你需要献上的祭品微不足道。可能摆放着皇帝的画像或雕像，前面有一团火焰。你只需取一小撮盐，扔进火焰中。火焰会瞬间燃起。这就足够了。这就像向国旗敬礼或唱国歌一样。基督徒不会这样做，因为他们和犹太人一样，认为他们只能崇拜一位神，绝不会把皇帝当作神来对待。罗马人通常会免除犹太人向皇帝敬拜的义务。他们认为基督徒脾气古怪、喜怒无常，但并非不可辨认，他们是一个古老的民族，拥有自己的神庙和神祇，居住在特定的土地上。相比之下，基督徒信奉的是一种新的宗教，而且基督徒可以是任何人，在任何地方。罗马人将他们视为颠覆分子，必须予以铲除。如果他们持续不断地迫害基督徒，或许真的能够成功。

The Romans were usually very tolerant. They ruled an empire which was composed of a variety of races and religions; if you kept the peace the Romans were prepared to let you follow your own path. You could govern yourself. You could practise your own religion, with this exception: you had to sacrifice to the emperor. The Romans believed the emperor was something like a god. The sacrifice you were required to make was trifling. There might be a portrait or statue of the emperor and, in front of it, a flame. You had to take a pinch of salt and drop it in the flame. The flame would flare up. That was enough. It was like saluting the flag or singing the national anthem. The Christians wouldn’t do it because, like the Jews, they said they must worship only one god and they would not treat the emperor as in any way a god. The Romans usually excused the Jews from honouring the emperor. They thought of them as cranky and volatile, but recognisable, an ancient people with their temple and their god, occupying a certain tract of country. By contrast, Christians were following a new religion and Christians could be anyone, anywhere. The Romans thought of them as subversives who had to be eliminated. They might have succeeded in this if they had consistently maintained the persecution.

随后奇迹发生了。公元313年，君士坦丁大帝皈依基督教，或者至少给予基督教教会官方支持。他认为他们的神或许比其他任何神都更能庇佑他和帝国。当时基督教远未成为主流信仰，但这位国家统治者却欣然接受了它；他向教会提供资金，并认可主教的统治。五十年后，另一位信奉基督教的皇帝宣布取缔所有其他宗教。在耶稣于罗马帝国一个动荡偏远的省份传道四百年后，基督教成为了帝国的官方唯一宗教。主教和神父们开始列队游行……他们走遍城镇，进军乡村，摧毁异教神庙。这是三大要素之间的第一个联系：罗马帝国皈依基督教。

Then a miracle happened. An emperor, Constantine, in 313 AD became a Christian or at least gave official support to the Christian churches. He thought their god might look after him and the empire better than any other. When Christianity was still far from being a majority faith, the ruler of the state embraced it; he gave the churches money and endorsed the rule of the bishops. Fifty years later another Christian emperor outlawed all other religions. Four hundred years after Jesus taught in a troubled and distant province of the Roman Empire, Christianity became the official and sole religion of the empire. The bishops and priests now paraded around the towns and marched into the countryside to destroy the pagan temples. This is the first link between the three elements: the Roman Empire becomes Christian.

到了这个阶段，教会与早期已截然不同。起初，基督徒们只是在私人住宅中聚会。而三四个世纪之后，教会已经建立起一套完整的、由全职带薪官员组成的等级制度：神父、主教和大主教。其中一位主教——罗马主教——甚至篡夺了教皇之位，掌控了教会。教会拥有自己的法律体系、法庭和监狱来执行法律。教会不仅管理教会事务，还掌控着婚姻和继承等诸多重要事项。由于每个人都必须缴纳税款来支持教会，因此教会也建立并执行着自己的税收制度。

By this stage the church was very different from what it had been in its early days. At first, groups of Christians had met in private houses. Now, three or four centuries later, there was a complete hierarchy of full-time paid officials: priests, bishops and archbishops. One of the bishops—the bishop of Rome—had managed to make himself into the pope and to govern the church. The church had its own system of law and its own courts and gaols to enforce its law. The church governed quite important matters like marriage and inheritance, not just church affairs. The church ran and enforced its own system of taxation because everyone was obliged to pay money to support it.

罗马帝国崩溃后，教会幸存了下来——它本身就像一个独立的政府。教皇的地位与罗马皇帝相当，统领着下属的一系列官员。由此可见，融合的第二个环节是：教会融入了罗马体系。

When the Roman Empire collapsed, the church survived—it was like a government in itself. The pope was a parallel figure to the Roman emperor, controlling a hierarchy of officials beneath him. Here we see the second link in the making of the mixture: the church becomes Roman.

罗马帝国崩溃后，教会保存了古希腊和古罗马的学术成果（此前教会已开始这样做）。这是一个了不起的成就，因为古希腊和古罗马的所有作家、哲学家和科学家都是异教徒，而非基督徒。为什么呢？基督教会会理会这些人吗？教会内部有一群人认为不应该，说他们的著作全是谎言，真理只在基督里。“雅典与耶路撒冷有何干系？”特土良问道。但这种观点并未占上风。

After the Roman Empire collapsed, the church preserved the learning of Greece and Rome (which it had already begun to do). This is an amazing development because all the writers, philosophers and scientists of ancient Greece and Rome were pagan, not Christian. Why would the Christian church bother with such people? There was one group in the Christian church who said that they should not, that their writings were falsehoods and the only truth is in Christ. “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” said Tertullian. But that view did not prevail.

基督徒并没有建立自己的教育体系，因此，当基督教开始系统化和规范其信仰时，它依赖于那些深受希腊罗马传统熏陶的学者。他们运用希腊哲学和逻辑来阐释和捍卫基督教。这些基督教学者认为，希腊和罗马的伟大哲学家和伦理学家掌握着部分真理，尽管基督教本身当然才是全部真理。但希腊哲学家的思想可以作为探寻真理和论证真理的指南。因此，尽管他们是异教徒，教会仍然保存并运用了他们的著作。这是第三个联系：教会保存了希腊和罗马的学术成果。

The Christians did not set up their own system of education, so when Christianity began to order and systematise its beliefs it relied on educated people who were steeped in the Greco-Roman tradition. They used Greek philosophy and Greek logic to explain and defend Christianity. These Christian scholars thought of the great philosophers and moralists of Greece and Rome as possessing some of the truth, though Christianity was of course the full truth. But the Greek philosophers could be used as a guide to the truth and to argue about the truth. So although they were pagan, the church preserved and used their writings. This is the third link: the church preserves Greek and Roman learning.

日耳曼人入侵罗马帝国时，并非意图将其摧毁。他们前来掠夺，夺取最好的土地，定居下来，享受美好的生活。他们乐于承认皇帝的统治。但问题在于，到了公元5世纪，大量日耳曼人涌入，占领了太多土地，以至于皇帝无处可管。实际上，罗马帝国最终走向灭亡，因为帝国已无任何领土可供统治。

When the Germans invaded the Roman Empire they did not intend to destroy it. They were coming for plunder, to get the best lands and to settle down and enjoy the good things of life. They were happy to acknowledge the emperor’s rule. But the trouble was that in the 400s so many Germans came, and took so much land, there was nothing left for the emperor to control. In effect the Roman Empire came to an end because there was nothing left to rule.

日耳曼战士们发现自己不得不管理他们入侵的社会，这并非他们最初的设想，而且他们必须在极其艰难的环境下完成这项工作。他们自身大多是文盲；在他们造成的混乱中，残存的罗马行政机构崩溃瓦解；贸易和城镇萎缩。这些武士首领自立为王，建立起一个个小王国；他们彼此征战不休；王国兴衰更迭迅速。几个世纪之后，现代西欧国家的雏形才逐渐显现：法国、西班牙、英国。

For their part the German warriors found that they had to run the societies they had invaded, which is not really what they expected to do, and they had to do so in very difficult circumstances. They themselves were illiterate; in the chaos that they had caused, the remaining Roman administration collapsed; trade and the towns shrank. The warrior chiefs set themselves up as kings and created little kingdoms; they fought among themselves; kingdoms rose and fell rapidly. It was many centuries before the outlines of the modern states of western Europe appeared: France, Spain, England.

在这种情况下，政府极其软弱。它们软弱到甚至无法征税。（在我们看来，这似乎自相矛盾——一个不征税的政府！）这位德国战士不再是领袖，而是转而投降。他登基为王，并将土地分封给他的同伴，这些同伴也逐渐跻身贵族行列。条件是，当国王需要军队时，贵族们必须为其提供兵力。他们会派遣一定数量的士兵。但贵族们开始将土地视为己有，并对派遣的士兵数量、素质和用途有了自己的想法。

Governments in these circumstances were extremely weak. They were so weak they were not able even to collect taxation. (To us this seems a contradiction in terms – a government that doesn’t tax!) Instead of being the chief, the German warrior now turned himself into a king and allotted land to his companions, who were turning themselves into the nobility, on the condition that when the king needed an army the nobles would provide it for him. They would send so many soldiers. But the nobles began to treat the land as if it were their own and to have their own views about how many soldiers they would send, and of what quality and for what purpose.

如今，国家元首检阅仪仗队。他们沿着队列行进，看似在仔细审视士兵，或许还会说上一两句话。这源于中世纪早期的一种做法，当时国王实际上是在审视他所派来的士兵，心里嘀咕：这次他们又派来了些什么废物？

Today heads of state inspect guards of honour. They move along the ranks, appearing to scrutinise the soldiers, perhaps saying a word or two. This is a carry-over from an early medieval practice when the king was really scrutinising the soldiers he had been sent and saying to himself: what sort of rubbish have they sent this time?

国王们为获得更多权力而进行了长期的斗争：他们渴望摆脱贵族的控制，独立统治；建立自己的税收体系；拥有完全掌控的军队；建立自己的官僚机构。但由于他们起步时地位极其弱势，有些东西他们始终无法撼动。私有财产神圣不可侵犯；贵族们将原本有条件占有的土地转变为私有财产。这始终限制着政府的权力，因此，尽管欧洲国王的权力不断增长，他们却从未像东方专制君主那样，拥有其领土内的一切。如果专制君主需要资源，他只需没收他人的财产，或者派遣军队到集市掠夺货物即可。欧洲政府，即便被称为“绝对君主制”，也绝不会如此行事。“并非一切都属于国王”是欧洲政府思想的基石。个人权利的概念正是源于私有财产权，而个人权利又是西方传统的核心组成部分。政府权力必须受到限制的观念之所以出现，是因为在建国初期，政府的权力实际上受到了极大的限制。

There was a long fight for kings to get more power: to be able to rule without being in the hands of the nobles; to get their own system of taxation; to have an army that they fully controlled; to get their own bureaucracy. But because they started from such a weak position there were some things that they were never able to threaten. Private property became sacrosanct; the nobles had turned land held on condition into private property. This always put a limitation on governments, so that though the powers of European kings grew they never became like oriental despots, who owned everything in their realm. If a despot was in need of assets he would simply seize someone’s property or send his troops down to the bazaar to grab a pile of merchandise. European governments, even when called ‘absolute’, could never act like that. Not everything is the king’s was the foundation of European thinking about government. From the right to private property derives the notion of individual rights, which is a central part of the Western tradition. The notion that government must be limited arose because at the beginning government in fact was extremely limited.

对政府权力的这种限制对经济发展也至关重要。商人所享有的安全保障是欧洲经济增长迅猛发展的重要原因之一，其发展速度之快，其他任何地方都无法比拟。

This limitation on government was also important for economic development. The security that merchants enjoyed was an important reason why it was in Europe that economic growth took off in a way not matched anywhere else.

了解了这些战士及其态度之后，我们就不应该对他们入侵帝国后不久便皈依基督教感到惊讶。教会是唯一幸存下来的机构。罗马帝国崩溃之际，主教常常亲自出面与前来劫掠的武士团谈判。主教说：“河对岸的土地你们可以拿走，但请把其他地方留给我们。”他可能会指着前罗马总督的宫殿——首领无疑会声称那是自己的领地——并建议主教很快会去那里帮忙管理。主教们很快就能说服武士们，如果他们接受基督教的上帝，就能杀死更多的敌人。这些征服者很特别：他们接受了被征服者的宗教信仰。教会明确地告诉这些新的统治者、国王和贵族，他们的职责之一就是维护基督教信仰。这是我们的最后一个链接：日耳曼武士支持基督教。

Knowing what we do about these warriors and their attitude, we should not be surprised that soon after invading the empire, they became Christian. The church was the only institution which survived the collapse of the Roman Empire. It was often the bishop who went out to treat with the warrior band as it arrived bent on plunder. It was the bishop who said: ‘You can have the land on that side of the river, but please leave the rest to us.’ He might point out the palace of the former Roman governor, which the chief would no doubt claim for himself, and suggest that he would visit him there soon to help in running the place. Quite quickly the bishops were able to persuade the warriors that they would kill more of their enemies if they accepted the Christian god. These were conquerors of a special sort: they accepted the religion of the people they had conquered. The church made it quite clear to these new rulers, kings and nobles, that one of their duties was to uphold the Christian faith. This is our last link: German warriors support Christianity.

如果我们把所有链接总结起来：

If we summarise all the links:

我们得出以下结论：

we reach this conclusion:

这真是一种奇特的组合，不是吗？它们并非天然的盟友。这是一种不稳定的组合。它最终会瓦解，但它却维持了大约一千年——从公元476年左右，即罗马帝国灭亡之年，到公元1400年左右。历史学家将这段时期称为中世纪或中世纪时期。而那些视野更广阔的历史学家则将1400年视为近代的开端。由此，欧洲历史被划分为三个时期：古代或古典时期；中世纪；近代。

It is a very odd mixture, isn’t it? These are not natural allies. It is an unstable mixture. Eventually it will break open but it held together for about a thousand years—from around 476 AD, the date of the fall of the Roman Empire, to about 1400. This is the period historians call the Middle Ages or the medieval period. Historians who take a large view of things regard 1400 as the beginning of modern times. This gives the three eras of European history: ancient or classical; medieval; modern.

整个中世纪，这看似奇特的三者始终维系着，但其构成要素却不断变化。以基督教为例。无论它原本是什么，它绝非好战的宗教。耶稣曾说：“爱你的仇敌。”早期基督徒拒绝服兵役，这也是罗马人对他们抱有戒心的原因之一。然而如今，基督徒却与日耳曼战士结盟。这种奉行“以德报怨”的宗教得到了铁腕人物的支持。这看似矛盾，实则不然。因为一旦基督教被君士坦丁大帝采纳并成为国教，它就不得不改变其对暴力的看法。政府必须征战，如果教会想要获得政府的支持，就必须承认政府有时可以进行正义的战争。

Throughout the Middle Ages this odd trio holds together, but the elements do change. Consider Christianity. Whatever else it was, it wasn’t a war-like religion. Jesus said: ‘Love your enemies.’ The early Christians refused military service, one reason why the Romans were suspicious of them. But now the Christians are in partnership with German warriors. This turn-the-other-cheek religion is supported by iron men. What sort of a contradiction is this? It is not as great as it seems, because once Christianity had been taken up by Constantine and become an official state religion it had to change its views about violence. Governments must fight, and if the church wanted the support of governments it had to agree that governments can sometimes fight justly.

然而，当教会与这些战士结盟时，并没有完全接受他们的价值观。几个世纪以来，战士演变成了骑士。骑士热爱战斗，并为自己的能力感到自豪。他参与战斗，但他为正义的事业而战。教会鼓励他与非基督徒作战——这的确是一项非常正义的事业。教会推动十字军东征，前往当时已落入穆斯林之手的圣地。如果你前往那里作战，就能获得特殊的豁免权。

Yet when the church teamed up with these warriors it did not fully accept their values. Over the centuries the warrior changed into the knight. A knight loved fighting, he was proud of his ability to fight, but he fought for good causes. The church encouraged him to fight non-Christians—that was a very good cause indeed. The church promoted the crusades to the Holy Land, which had fallen into Muslim hands. Special dispensation was offered if you went and fought there.

骑士也保护弱者，尤其是出身高贵的女性。因此，随着战斗中道德意义的加深，男子通过某种宗教仪式成为骑士。他的剑被放置在基督教教堂的祭坛上，然后佩戴在骑士身上，骑士便会带着这把剑去行善积德。

A knight also protected the weak, especially high-born women. So with this new moral overtone to his fighting, a man became a knight in a sort of religious ceremony. His sword was placed on the altar in a Christian church and then buckled onto the knight, who would then go off and do good things with it.

这种保护和尊重女性的态度在欧洲文化中根深蒂固。骑士时代结束后，这种态度演变成了“绅士”的准则，他们是基督教骑士的后裔。绅士会通过在女性进入房间时起立、拒绝在女性站立时坐下以及向女性轻触帽子来表达对女性的尊重。我在学校里就学过这些，至今难以忘怀。在这方面，我简直就是中世纪的活生生的遗物。

This attitude of protecting and honouring ladies was long lasting in European culture. After the knights disappeared it became the attitude of a ‘gentleman’, the descendant of the Christian knight. A gentleman showed respect for women by standing when women came into the room, by refusing to be seated while women were standing and by touching his hat to women. I was taught this at school and find it hard to forget. In this I’m a living relic of the Middle Ages.

近代的女权主义者反对这种尊重。她们不愿被捧上神坛，她们渴望平等。在争取平等的运动中，她们拥有身高优势；站在神坛上总比脚踏实地要好。正是因为女性在欧洲文化中享有这种程度的尊重，女权主义才得以相对容易地被接受。但在其他文化中，情况则截然不同。

Feminists in recent times fought against this respect. They did not want to be honoured on a pedestal; they wanted to be equal. In their campaign for equality they had the advantage of height; better to start on a pedestal than ground firmly underfoot. It was because women had this degree of respect in European culture that feminism was fairly readily accepted. It is a different story in other cultures.

让我们来看看其中的另一个矛盾：基督教教会对希腊罗马学术的保存。这是一个积极的保存过程；教会并非只是把这些珍贵的书籍束之高阁。它们之所以能够流传至今——而我们今天也只能阅读它们——是因为教会在整个中世纪不断地抄写和再抄写。当时还没有印刷术；书籍会腐烂消亡。正是修道院里的僧侣们，即便他们常常并不了解自己抄写的内容——因此才会出现许多错误——也才得以保存了如此之多的希腊罗马瑰宝。

Let us look at another tension in this mix: the Christian church preserving Greek and Roman learning. This was an active process of preservation; it wasn’t as if the church merely put the clever books in a cupboard and left them there. They have only survived—and we can only read them now—because the church copied and re-copied them right through the Middle Ages. There was no printing; books rot and perish. It was the monks in the monasteries, often not knowing what they were copying—hence the many mistakes—who preserved so much of the treasures of Greece and Rome.

如果从其自身角度解读，这些文献所呈现的哲学、价值体系和人生观是非基督教的，甚至是异教的。然而，中世纪教会对知识界的掌控如此强大，以至于无人能够客观地审视这些文献。教会只是随意挪用，将所得碎片重新组合，与《圣经》经文相融合，从而构建出一套基督教神学，即一套关于上帝、上帝的世界及其救赎计划的论述。于是，希腊哲学、希腊学术和希腊逻辑都被用于支持基督教。古代文献的新发现并没有扰乱学者们的思路；他们反而将这些新发现融入到他们神学的新版本中。

If read in its own terms, this literature presents a philosophy, a system of values, an attitude to life which is un-Christian, pagan. But the church in the Middle Ages was able to maintain such command over intellectual life that no-one ever looked at this literature in its own terms. Instead the church borrowed what it wanted, reassembled the bits it had taken, put them with passages from the Bible and so constructed a Christian theology, that is, an account of God and God’s world and his plan of salvation. So Greek philosophy, Greek learning and Greek logic were all pressed into service in support of Christianity. New discoveries of ancient texts did not disturb the scholars; they wove new discoveries into a new version of their theology.

让我们总结一下中世纪这种融合是如何运作的。战士们皈依基督教，成为骑士；希腊和罗马的学术体系支持基督教。教会身处这种奇特的联盟之中，维系着整个体系。学术是基督教的，骑士是基督教的，世界是基督教世界，是基督的国度。

Let us summarise how the mix was working in the Middle Ages. We have warriors becoming Christian knights, we have Greek and Roman learning supporting Christianity. The church, in the middle of this odd alliance, is managing to hold the whole thing together. Learning is Christian, the knights are Christian, the world is Christendom, the realm of Christ.

公元1400年以后，这种奇特的联盟开始瓦解，历史学家所称的近代史也由此开始。

After the year 1400 this strange alliance begins to break apart and what historians call modern times begin.

T构成欧洲文明的这种混合体并不稳定。它持续了很长时间——贯穿中世纪，长达一千年——但其组成要素彼此并不和谐。大约在公元1400年左右，这种混合体开始瓦解。这种情况最初出现在文艺复兴时期。

THE MIXTURE THAT FORMED European civilisation was an unstable one. It lasted for a long time—through the Middle Ages, a thousand years—but its elements were not in harmony with each other. Around the year 1400 the mixture began to come apart. This occurred first in the Renaissance.

文艺复兴常被描绘成对希腊罗马学术的发现或重新发现。但事实并非如此，这些学术并非已经失传需要重新发现（尽管当时也出现了一些新的发现）。真正的改变在于，教会不再利用古代学术来支撑其神学，而是出现了一批学者，他们大多来自教会之外，对想象古希腊罗马学术诞生之时的世界产生了浓厚的兴趣。他们渴望像古代艺术家那样创作艺术，建造像他们那样的建筑，书写像他们那样的拉丁文，思考像他们那样的思想。他们试图将自己带回一个非基督教的异教世界——而教会却将这些学术用于自身目的，并刻意掩盖了这一世界的真实面貌。

The Renaissance is often depicted as the discovery or rediscovery of Greek and Roman learning. But it wasn’t so much that the learning had been lost and had to be rediscovered, though some new discoveries were made at this time. What had changed was that instead of the church using ancient learning to support its theology, now there were scholars, chiefly outside the church, who were interested in imagining the Greek and Roman world as it existed when the learning was produced. They wanted to make art like the ancient artists did, to build buildings like theirs, to write Latin like they did, to think like they did. They were thinking themselves back into a previous world that was un-Christian and pagan—something which the church had hidden as it had used this learning for its own purposes.

这也是一个更加“世俗”的世界。古人更关注今生今世的所作所为，而非死后的世界。他们赞美人类的能力和力量，并不着重于人的堕落。文艺复兴时期的学者们进入的，是一个非常开放包容的世界。古代哲学家和伦理学家对于如何生活、如何思考有着千丝万缕的联系。他们的辩论和思考并没有像教会那样，受到思想的束缚。

It was also a more ‘worldly’ world. The ancients had been far more concerned with men and their doings on this earth than with their life after death. The ancients had celebrated man’s capacity and powers and they hadn’t dwelt on his depravity. It was a very open-minded world which the Renaissance scholars now entered. There was a huge variety of views among the ancient philosophers and moralists on how best to live and what best to think. Their debates and speculations had not been carried on within the sort of straitjacket that the church had imposed on thinking.

然而，文艺复兴时期的学者们并没有直接攻击基督教。尽管他们个人的态度各不相同，但总体而言，他们对基督教的看法与古代人对宗教的看法相似。也就是说，宗教是理所当然存在的，它总体上是好事或必需品，但还有许多其他值得关注的事物。宗教不应控制生活和思想的方方面面，而这正是教会曾经的目标。一旦这种控制被打破，欧洲的思想就变得更加大胆、更加开放，也更加不拘泥于确定性。

However, the scholars of the Renaissance did not directly attack Christianity. They varied in their individual attitudes, but broadly they took a view of the Christian religion which was similar to the ancients’ own view of religion. That is, religion was something unproblematically present, it was broadly a good thing or a necessary thing, but there were many other things to be interested in. Religion was not to control all of life and thought, which had been the church’s aim. Once that control had been broken, European thought became much more adventurous, more broad-minded, less given to certainty than it had been previously.

文艺复兴开启了欧洲社会世俗化的漫长进程。世俗世界里，宗教或许存在，但它以私人机构或信奉特定信仰的群体形式存在——正如我们当今的世界一样。宗教不再主导社会；它不再将自身的规则和仪式强加于人，也不再控制思想。

With the Renaissance begins the long process of the secularisation of European society. A secular world is one in which religion might exist, but it exists as private business or as an association of people who are attached to certain beliefs—as in our world. Religion doesn’t dominate society; it does not impose its rules and rituals on everyone, or control thought.

文艺复兴时期发生的事情是，一种文化和传统的人们将自己的思想融入了另一种文化和传统。一旦如此，你就再也回不到从前了。一切都不再那么确定和固定。这并非欧洲思想家最后一次突破自我。

What happened in the Renaissance was that the people of one culture and tradition thought themselves into another culture and tradition. Once you’ve done that, you are never the same again. Nothing ever seems as certain and fixed. Not for the last time, European thinkers had jumped out of their own skin.

文艺复兴时期的人们率先将古希腊罗马时代称为古典时代。这里的“古典”指的是至高无上：经典的成就、经典的表演，以及无法超越的事物。他们认为古代人在文学、艺术、哲学和科学领域的成就无人能及，也无法超越。他们自己如果能接近这些成就，就已经算是非常了不起了。因此，文艺复兴打破了这种混杂的局面，传递出“古典至上”的信息。

The men of the Renaissance were the first to call the age of Greece and Rome the classical era. Classic here means the very best: a classic catch, a classic performance, something that cannot be surpassed. They believed that the achievements of the ancients in literature, art, philosophy and science were unsurpassed and unsurpassable. They themselves would do well if they could come close to equalling it. So the Renaissance disrupted the mixture with the message: the classics are supreme.

我们的计时系统基于两种不同的基准，这不断提醒着我们文明的混合本质。我们以基督的诞生为纪年，从这个意义上讲，我们仍然承认自己是一个基督教文明。公元（AD）是拉丁语“ Anno Domini ”（主的年份）的缩写（实际上，基督并非出生于公元1年，更可能是公元前6年或4年）。然而，我们划分时代的方式——古典时期、中世纪和近代——与基督教毫无关系。这是文艺复兴时期的观点，认为古典世界达到了完美的巅峰，之后人类迷失了方向，与自身的传统失去了联系。这段“停滞期”就是所谓的中世纪，而这恰恰是教会在思想和社会生活中达到鼎盛时期的时期。因此，古典时期、中世纪和近代这种划分方式与基督教的教义相悖。

Our system of time works on two different bases, which is a constant reminder of the mixed nature of our civilisation. We date years from the birth of Christ and in that sense we still acknowledge ourselves as a Christian civilisation. AD is an abbreviation of the Latin Anno Domini, ‘in the year of the Lord’ (who was actually born not in the year 1 AD but more likely 6 or 4 BC). However, the way we divide time into eras—classical, medieval and modern—hasn’t anything to do with Christianity. It is the Renaissance view, which says that the classical world reached a peak of perfection and then mankind wandered and lost touch with its heritage. This period of ‘time-out’ is the so-called Middle Ages, which is the very time when the church reached its pre-eminence in intellectual and social life. So classical, medieval, modern is a very un-Christian formulation.

三尊雕塑可以阐释古典、中世纪和现代这三个时期的艺术发展脉络。第一尊是古希腊雕塑，因此它的一只手臂已经残缺不全。保存至今的古希腊雕塑原作并不多，我们现在看到的通常是罗马时期的复制品，质量远不及原作。这尊雕塑是普拉克西特列斯创作的赫尔墨斯神与幼年狄俄尼索斯的雕像。将人体视为美和完美的象征是希腊人的发明。正如艺术史学家肯尼斯·克拉克所说，裸体与裸露的身体是有区别的。裸体是……就其本身而言，这恰如其分；裸体没有衣物，反而因其缺失而显得更为简洁。当然，大多数男性的身材并非如此：古希腊人的目的并非描绘某种特定的身材。他们致力于探寻人体的完美，并运用数学来确定最令人愉悦和优美的比例。

Three sculptures can illustrate the three-fold movement of classical, medieval, modern. The first is an ancient Greek sculpture, which is why one of the arms no longer survives. Not many of the original Greek sculptures survive; what we have are usually Roman copies which are not nearly as good. This is the god Hermes with the infant Dionysus by Praxiteles. The human body as a thing of beauty and perfection is a Greek invention. As the art historian Kenneth Clark says, the nude is to be distinguished from the naked body. The nude is sufficient in itself, very properly in this state; the naked body is without clothes and reduced by their absence. Of course most male bodies don’t look like this: the aim of the Greeks was not to represent a particular body. They worked to find perfection in the body and they used their mathematics to establish the proportions that are most pleasing and beautiful.

第二尊雕塑展现了中世纪的人体形象；这些雕像位于德国希尔德斯海姆大教堂的大门上。描绘的是亚当和夏娃吃了上帝禁止他们吃的禁果之后的情景。亚当责怪夏娃，夏娃责怪蛇；两人都为自己的赤身裸体感到羞耻，并用衣物遮掩了一部分。这些雕像绝非裸体；它们体现了基督教教义，即肉体是邪恶的，是罪恶的根源。

The second sculpture is a medieval view of the human form; these figures are on the cathedral doors at Hildesheim in Germany. This is Adam and Eve after they have eaten the fruit which God said they should not eat. Adam is blaming Eve; Eve is blaming the serpent; both are ashamed of their nakedness, which in part they cover. These are very definitely not nudes; they embody the Christian teaching that the body is evil, a source of sin.

第三点是文艺复兴时期的米开朗基罗，他以希腊人为榜样，回归了他们对裸体的理解。他将大卫描绘成完美的人形：人是高尚、优雅和美丽的化身——正如哈姆雷特所说，“行动上像天使，理解上像神”。

Here thirdly is Michelangelo in the Renaissance, modelling himself on the Greeks and returning to their idea of the nude. He renders his David as a human form of perfection: man as the embodiment of something high-spirited, noble and beautiful—as Hamlet says, ‘in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god’.

从裸体到赤身裸体再到赤身裸体，可以代表从古典到中世纪再到现代的运动，这也是文艺复兴对自身的理解。

From nude to naked to nude can stand for the movement from classical to medieval to modern, which is how the Renaissance understood itself.

文艺复兴是中世纪世界的第一次重大变革；第二次则是十六世纪的宗教改革。这场改革直接冲击了教会，其目的是使基督教教会回归到罗马帝国之前的形态。正如我们所见，教会之所以具有罗马的特征，是因为它成长于罗马帝国境内；帝国崩溃后，教会依然保留了教皇（如同皇帝一般）、大主教 和主教（如同古罗马帝国的行政官员），以及遍布各地的神职人员。这个神圣的机构拥有自己的法律、刑罚、监狱和税收制度。

THE RENAISSANCE WAS THE first great disruption of the medieval world; the second was the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. This was a direct attack on the church. Its aim was to return the Christian church to what it was like before it became Roman. As we have seen, the church acquired its Roman features because it grew up within the Roman Empire; when the empire collapsed the church continued with its pope, who was like an emperor figure, and archbishops and bishops, who were like the administrators of the old Roman Empire, and beneath them in every locality the priests. This holy body had its laws, its punishments, its gaols and its system of taxation.

教皇和主教们统治着教会，决定着教会的教义。教会提供救赎，但只能通过它所掌控的途径。你需要神父和主教才能得救。你必须领圣餐，参加弥撒，你需要神父来施展 神奇的魔法，将饼和酒变成耶稣的圣体圣血。你需要神父来听你的忏悔，赦免你的罪过，并为你的罪过设定补赎。神父可能会指示你念多少遍圣母经，或者去朝圣，或者，对于严重的罪行，让你在祭坛前接受鞭笞。如果你富有且即将离世，神父可能会非常坚定地告诉你，除非你把大部分财富留给教会，否则你将无法进入天堂。

The pope and the bishops ruled the church and determined its teaching. The church offered you salvation but only by means that it controlled. You needed priests and bishops in order to be saved. You had to take the communion, the mass, and you needed a priest to create the magic of turning the bread and the wine into the body and blood of Jesus. You needed a priest to hear your confession, to grant forgiveness and set the penance for your sins. The priest might instruct you to say so many Hail Marys or to go on a pilgrimage or, for a severe offence, to allow yourself to be whipped before the altar. If you were rich and dying, the priest might tell you very firmly that you would not go to heaven unless you left a good deal of your wealth to the church.

在中世纪，大多数神父、主教和大主教并非出于虔诚或宗教信仰而加入教会；人们加入教会是因为它是当时规模最大、最富有的组织 。人们接受圣职的原因与今天人们进入公务员队伍、大型企业、政界或大学深造的原因如出一辙：为了获得一份稳定的工作、从事有趣的工作、获得高薪、过上优渥的生活、行使权力。在教会里，有很多机会可以让自己致富，也可以为亲朋好友安排职位。

In the Middle Ages most priests, bishops and archbishops did not enter the church because they were particularly pious or religious; men joined the church because it was the largest and richest organisation of the day. You took holy orders for the same reasons as today you would go into the civil service or a large corporation or politics or to a university: to get a secure job, to get interesting work, to get a high salary, to live well, to exercise power. In the church there was plenty of opportunity for enriching yourself and giving jobs to friends and relatives.

然而，这个富有、掠夺成性、腐败堕落的组织，同时也是耶稣教义和早期基督徒 记载的保存者。耶稣和他的追随者原本都是谦卑之人，而如今教皇和主教却居住在宫殿里。耶稣曾警告人们提防这些危险。财富充裕，早期基督徒只是在彼此家中聚会。这一切都记载在《圣经》中，因此教会的这部神圣文献在批评者手中可能成为致命的武器。教会是如何在如此长的时间里免受毁灭性批评的呢？

Yet this rich, plundering, corrupt organisation was also the preserver of the teachings of Jesus and the accounts of the early Christians. Jesus and his followers had been humble people but now popes and bishops lived in palaces. Jesus had warned against the dangers of riches and the early Christians had simply met in each other’s houses. All this is recorded in the Bible, so the church’s holy document could be dynamite in the hands of its critics. How did the church manage to escape for so long from a devastating critique?

由于《圣经》是用拉丁文写成的，所以只有极少数人能读懂。教会声称自己是解释《圣经》的权威，也是最终权威。如果有人用《圣经》批评教会的教义或做法，并且造成了严重的麻烦，就会被当作异端烧死；也就是说，被视为假信徒，对自身和基督教世界都构成威胁。然而，到了十六世纪，随着宗教改革的爆发，却有一个异端逃脱了惩罚。他的名字叫马丁·路德。

As the Bible was in Latin, very few people could read it. The church said it was the first and final authority for interpreting the Bible. If anyone used the Bible to criticise the teaching or the practice of the church and made a real nuisance of themselves, they were burnt as heretics; that is, as false believers, a danger to themselves and to Christendom. But then in the sixteenth century, with the Reformation, there was a heretic who got away. His name was Martin Luther.

路德是一位非常虔诚的修士。他为自己的救赎而苦恼 ：他如此罪孽深重，究竟该如何才能得救？后来，当他读到圣经中保罗写给罗马教会的信时，他的疑惑突然得到了解答。保罗在信中说，你对基督的信仰将使你得救。路德由此推断，你无需做任何事就能得救，尤其无需将自己交托给神父，也无需听从他们的指示。你只需要相信，拥有信心；唯有信心才能使你得救，这是路德宗的核心信息。相信基督，你就能得救。当然，作为信徒，你会想要做一些事来取悦上帝，去做教会所说的善事，​​去做基督教导我们该做的事。但这些善行本身并不能帮助你得救。这正是新教和天主教教义的分歧所在。从根本上讲，天主教强调善行是得救过程的一部分。去朝圣，施舍穷人：这些都能帮助你在上帝面前获得救赎。路德却说并非如此——我们这些罪孽深重、堕落不堪的人，做什么又怎能讨上帝喜悦呢？我们唯一能做的就是信，而上帝应许，只要我们相信，就能得救。

Luther was a monk who took his religion very seriously. He agonised over his own salvation: what could he do, he who was so sinful, to be saved? Then his mind was suddenly put at rest while reading in the Bible Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. Here Paul says your faith in Christ will save you. From this Luther deduced that you didn’t have to do anything to be saved, in particular you didn’t have to put yourself in the hands of the priests and follow their instructions. All you had to do was to believe, to have faith; faith alone will save you is the central Lutheran message. Believe in Christ and you will be saved. Now as a believer, of course, you will want to do things to please God, to do, as the church says, good works, to act as Christ says we should act. But those works in themselves will not help you to be saved. This is where Protestant and Catholic teaching differed fundamentally. The Catholics emphasised good works as part of the process of salvation. Going on a pilgrimage, giving your money to the poor: that will help your cause with God. Luther said it will not—how could anything we do, we who are so sinful and corrupt, make us pleasing in God’s eyes? The only thing we can do is to believe and if we believe, God has promised that we will be saved.

这是一种自助式的宗教；路德说，教会几个世纪以来建立起来的庞大体系都是不必要的。这种观点在罗马引起了强烈不满。教皇驳斥了路德对教会的批评以及他关于救赎的新教义。路德则以猛烈的抨击回应教皇。这个人以为自己是谁？我们被告知他是基督在世的代表，然而他实际上是基督的敌人，是反基督者。他过着奢华的生活，头戴三重冠冕，觐见他时必须亲吻他的脚趾，他走动时由仆人抬着——然而我们从圣经中得知，基督是步行行走的。圣经：这是路德批判教会的关键。如果某件事圣经中没有记载，教会就没有理由坚持或实践它。圣经是唯一的权威。与罗马决裂后，路德做的第一件事就是将圣经翻译成德语，以便每个人都能阅读它，并成为自己救赎的管理者。

This is a sort of do-it-yourself religion; all that huge apparatus which the church had built up over the centuries, Luther said, was unnecessary. This view did not go down well in Rome. The pope rejected Luther’s criticisms of the church and his new teaching about salvation. Luther replied with fierce denunciations of the pope. Who does this man think he is? He is the representative of Christ on earth, so we are told, yet he is really the enemy of Christ, the anti-Christ. He lives in pomp, wears a triple crown, when you come into his presence you have to kiss his toe, when he moves he is carried shoulder-high by his servants—and yet we know from the Bible that Christ went around on foot. The Bible: that was the key to Luther’s criticism of the church. If something was not in the Bible, the church was not justified in insisting on it or practising it. The Bible was the sole authority. After his break with Rome, the first thing Luther did was to translate the Bible into German so everyone could read it and become the managers of their own salvation.

宗教改革运动旨在通过以《圣经》为基础的教义和实践来改革教会，力图恢复早期教会的活力。宗教改革的核心信息是：基督教并非罗马天主教。

The Protestant Reformation was the movement to reform the church by basing teaching and practice on the Bible. It wanted to recover the life of the early church. The message of the Reformation was Christianity is not Roman.

路德是如何逃脱异端罪名的火刑的？原因有很多。其中之一是印刷术的发明。路德对教会的所有批评和谴责都立即被印刷出版，并在欧洲广泛传播。印刷术是一项新兴发明，在路德开始抨击教会时，它才诞生五十年。在教皇组织起来镇压路德之前，几乎人人都知道他，人人都在阅读他的批评文章。这并非像以往那样，路德只是一个国家里少数追随者的异端；他很快就拥有了国际性的追随者。路德得以幸存的另一个原因是，一些德意志诸侯对他的罗马之举表示欢迎。当时的德国并非一个统一的国家；德国曾是众多邦国的联合体。部分原因在于此，教会在德国的影响力甚至超过了统一后的法国和英国。教会拥有大片土地，在某些地方几乎占到国土的一半，向民众征收巨额税款，教皇任命主教时，诸侯们毫无发言权。诸侯们追随路德，得以夺取教会的土地，任命自己的主教，并切断罗马的财政收入。诸侯们成为路德的保护者，路德教会也在他们的领地内兴起。路德教会在德国约一半的领土上建立起来，并从德国向北传播到瑞典、丹麦和挪威。英国则形成了自己的新教分支——英国国教。

How did Luther escape being burnt as a heretic? There are a number of reasons. One was the invention of printing. All Luther’s criticisms and denunciations of the church were immediately put into print and circulated widely through Europe. Printing was a new invention, only fifty years old when Luther began his attack on the church. Before the pope could organise to defeat Luther, everyone knew of him, everyone was reading his criticisms. This was not a heretic with just a few followers in one country, as there had been many times before; this man very quickly had an international following. The other reason why Luther survived is that some of the German princes welcomed his attack on Rome. Germany was not one country; it was a collection of many states. Partly because of this the church exercised more influence in Germany than in the unified countries of France and England. It held an immense amount of land, almost half in some places, collected large sums of money from the people, and the pope appointed bishops without the princes having a say. By following Luther, the princes were able to seize the church lands, appoint their own bishops and stop the flow of money to Rome. The princes became the protectors of Luther and in their realms the Lutheran church began. The Lutheran church was established in about half of Germany and from Germany Lutheranism spread north into Sweden, Denmark and Norway. England adopted its own brand of Protestantism, the Church of England.

很快，罗马教会就出现了不止一个竞争对手。新教教会形式多样，各国情况不尽相同。它们在各自国家内自给自足，由一系列国家教会组成，而天主教会则是一个国际组织。人们开始自行研读圣经，正如路德和其他宗教改革家所鼓励的那样，他们很快就从圣经中找到了批评路德的理由。由于不再有中央权威来解释圣经和规范信仰，新教运动不断涌现出新的教会。

Quite quickly there was more than one rival to the church of Rome. The Protestant churches took a number of different forms, different in each country. They were self-sufficient within their countries, a series of national churches, whereas the Catholic church was an international organisation. Once people began to read the Bible for themselves, as Luther and the other reformers encouraged them to do, they soon found reasons in it to criticise Luther too. The Protestant movement kept spinning off new churches because there was no longer a central authority to interpret the Bible and police belief.

一百多年来，天主教徒和新教徒互相争斗，真刀真枪地交战。双方都视对方为彻头彻尾的异端，并非视对方为不同信仰的基督徒，甚至不是非基督徒，而是视对方为反基督教的，是真正教会的敌人。只有消灭对方，真正的教会才能得以保存，而这种杀戮的教义最终导致了屠杀。与其让天主教徒或新教徒宣扬一种完全冒犯上帝、损害其在世教会的教义，不如让他们被杀。然而，在长达一百年的战争之后，双方都未能取得胜利，最终达成了一种长期的休战协议，宽容的理念也逐渐兴起。首先，人们接受了可以同时存在新教国家和天主教国家，然后——这是一个巨大的飞跃——人们开始接受不同类型的基督徒或许可以在同一个国家和平共处，而这在最初是新教徒和天主教徒都无法接受的。

For over a hundred years Catholics and Protestants fought each other, literally fought each other, in wars. Each regarded the other as totally wrong, not as a different sort of Christian, not even as non-Christian, but rather as anti-Christian, as the enemy of the true church. The true church could only be preserved if the other side was eliminated, and that murderous doctrine led to slaughter. It was better that a Catholic or a Protestant be killed than that they preach a doctrine which was absolutely offensive to God and damaging to his church on earth. Yet after fighting each other for a hundred years and neither side winning, the two sides arrived at a sort of long truce and gradually the notion of toleration arose. Firstly it was accepted that there can be Protestant countries and Catholic countries and then—a big jump—that perhaps different sorts of Christians can live peacefully in the one country, something neither Protestants nor Catholics believed at first.

文艺复兴和宗教改革都是回顾过去的运动；它们都试图将最初融合的文化元素与其余部分分离。文艺复兴追溯到古希腊罗马的学术传统。新教改革者则追溯到基督教教会形成罗马式结构之前的时期。天主教会保存了对这两场运动都至关重要的文献。它保存了古希腊罗马的学术传统，文艺复兴利用这些传统来规避其思想权威；它创造并神圣化了《圣经》，而新教改革者则利用《圣经》来破坏其神学和教会的统一性。

The Renaissance and the Reformation were both backward-looking movements; they were trying to separate one part of the founding mixture from the rest. The Renaissance was looking backwards to Greek and Roman learning. The Protestant reformers were looking backwards to the Christian church before it assumed its Roman structure. The Catholic church had harboured the documents that were central to both movements. It had preserved Greek and Roman learning, which the Renaissance used to escape its intellectual authority, and it had created and sanctified the Bible, which the Protestant reformers used to disrupt its theology and unity.

现在我们必须探究欧洲文化如何走向前瞻；它如何开始相信进步，相信事物会随着时间推移而变得更好——这在当时是非常奇怪的信念。这种进步信念源于十七世纪的科学革命。现代科学正是在这一时期开始的。

WE NOW HAVE TO LOOK AT the process by which European culture became forward-looking; how it came to believe in progress, that things over time will get better, which is a very odd thing to believe. The belief in progress came about as a result of the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. This is the period when our modern science begins.

十七世纪初，希腊人仍然是宇宙及其运行规律方面的权威。他们的核心理论是地球是宇宙的中心，所有其他行星，包括月球和太阳，都围绕地球运行。根据希腊人的说法，地球是静止的；它看起来并没有移动——究竟是什么力量能够移动它呢？它是静止的。地球是……尘世间万物变迁腐朽，而天界却是纯净、完美、永恒不变的。行星为何绕着天运行？因为圆是完美的形状。希腊几何学认为世间存在完美的形状：正方形是其中之一，圆形是另一种。因此，行星绕着天运行，因为天界是完美的，它们无需任何外力驱动。它们以完美的圆周运动和谐运转。

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Greeks were still the authority on the universe and how it worked. Their central teaching was that the earth is at the centre of the universe and round the earth go all the other planets, including the moon and the sun. The earth, according to the Greeks, was still; it did not appear to move—what force could possibly move it? It is stationary. The earth is the impure realm; on earth things change and decay but the heavens are a pure, perfect, unchanging realm. Why do the planets go in circles? Because the circle is a perfect form. It is one of the teachings of Greek geometry that there are perfect forms: the square is one, the circle is another. So the planets go in circles and because this is the perfect realm they do not need any force to move them. They are spinning in perfect circular harmony.

十七世纪，这种观点被我们至今仍奉为真理的观点所推翻。太阳位于宇宙的中心；行星围绕太阳运行，但并非沿圆形轨道，而是沿椭圆轨道；地球是围绕太阳运行的行星之一，而月球则围绕地球运行。整个宇宙是一个单一的整体；曾经存在的分离领域，例如污浊的尘世和纯净的天堂，都已不复存在。宇宙万物皆为一体，一条或一系列法则便能解释一切。

In the seventeenth century that view was overthrown by what we still regard as the truth. The sun is at the centre of the system; the planets go round the sun, not in circles but in ellipses; the earth is one of the planets going around the sun and around the earth goes the moon. The system is a single system; gone are the separate realms, impure earth and pure heavens. It is one system throughout, and one law or one series of laws explains the whole thing.

是什么让地球和行星运动？艾萨克·牛顿的答案是：宇宙万物都会沿着直线运动，除非受到其他因素的影响。而始终存在的这种因素就是宇宙中所有物体之间的引力。所有物体都在相互吸引：这本书被地球吸引，月球被地球吸引，地球被太阳吸引。地球上的水之所以会随着潮汐涨落，正是因为地球和月球之间引力的变化。正是这种引力系统将所有物质维系在一起。现在我们可以解释行星的运动规律了。有两种力作用于行星：一是沿直线运动的趋势，二是受到太阳引力的趋势。这两种趋势共同作用，使得行星沿着椭圆轨道绕太阳运行。

What makes the earth and the planets move? The answer, said Isaac Newton, is that everything in the universe will continue to move in a straight line unless something else acts on it. A something else that is always present is the attraction between every body that exists in the universe. All bodies are attracting each other: this book is being attracted to the earth, the moon is attracted to the earth, the earth is attracted to the sun. The water on the earth is pulled up and down in tides because of the changing force of attraction between earth and moon. It is the one system which holds all matter together. We can now determine why the planets move as they do. There are two forces acting on them: the tendency to move in a straight line and the tendency to be attracted to the sun. The result of the two tendencies is that the planet is tipped into its elliptical course around the sun.

牛顿将所有物体之间的这种吸引力称为“引力”，并利用万有引力定律计算出任意两个物体之间的引力大小。该定律可以用数学公式表示。它指出，引力会随着物体质量的增大而增强，即与物体的质量成正比。引力会随着物体间距离的增大而减弱，即与距离成反比。因此，两个物体的质量越大，引力越大；而当它们之间的距离增大时，引力则越小。事实上，引力会随着物体间的距离迅速减小；引力的大小与两物体间距离的平方成正比。所以，距离加倍，引力就会减弱到原来的四倍（2 × 2）。以下是公式，这也是我唯一要讲解的公式。牛顿曾用它来测量地球和太阳之间的引力。

To this attraction between all bodies, Newton gave the term ‘gravitation’ and he was able to work out the force of the gravitation between any two bodies with his Universal Law of Gravitation. The law is expressed as a mathematical formula. It says the force of gravitation will grow stronger as the bodies get bigger: it will relate directly to their mass. The force of attraction will become weaker as the distance between the bodies increases: it relates inversely to the distance between them. So the attraction increases as the mass of the two bodies gets larger, and it decreases as they get further apart. In fact it decreases very rapidly as the bodies move apart; the force of attraction weakens by the distance between the two bodies squared. So a doubling of the distance makes the force four times as weak (2 x 2). Here is the formula, the only equation I will trouble you with. Newton used it to measure the attraction between the earth and the sun.

这样的方程式提醒我们，数学是科学的核心，同时也印证了古希腊人的预感：世界是简单的，支配世界的规律也必然是数学形式的。十七世纪的科学家们推翻了古希腊人对宇宙的认知，但他们运用的仍然是古希腊的数学方法。

An equation like this reminds us both that maths is at the centre of science and that the Greek hunch turned out to be true: the world is simple and the laws governing it will be mathematical in form. The scientists of the seventeenth century overturned Greek learning on the universe but they did so with the Greek method of mathematics.

从我们身处的地球——太阳系第三颗行星——出发，探寻整个宇宙系统的运行规律，这真是一项了不起的成就！人类将自身置于宇宙中心，这是多么自然而然的事情。遵循感官的指引，并假定地球静止不动，这又是多么自然而然的事情。尊重伟大的古希腊人的学识，这又是多么理所当然的事情。在所有这些思潮的影响下，十七世纪的科学最终取得了胜利。

What a magnificent achievement it was to find out from where we are—on earth, which is the third planet from the sun—how the whole system works! How natural it was for humans to put themselves at the centre of the universe. How natural to follow the evidence of their senses and assume that the earth was still. How proper to respect the learning of the magnificent Greeks. Against all these tendencies, science in the seventeenth century had its triumph.

科学革命传达的信息是：希腊人错了。人们对古典文化的崇敬之情被打破了。我们不仅超越了他们，而且做得更好。

The message of the Scientific Revolution was the Greeks were wrong. The great reverence for the classics was broken. We have done better than equal them; we have surpassed them.

这些科学家多么聪明啊，但他们的聪明才智又将他们引向何方？他们发现人类只是边缘群体，并非宇宙的中心。这是西方人常见的困境：我们非常聪明，却不断发现自己微不足道。更糟糕的是，到了十九世纪，达尔文提出我们与猿类拥有共同祖先的观点。这进一步贬低了人类及其自负。我们并非宇宙的中心，我们并非特殊的造物，我们只是由一系列偶然事件从动物王国演化而来。

How clever these scientists were, but where had their cleverness got them? They had discovered that humans were marginal, that they were not at the centre of the universe. This is a common Western predicament; we are very clever but we keep discovering we are insignificant. Worse was to come in the nineteenth century when Darwin advanced the view that we share a common ancestor with the apes. This was a further demoting of man and his presumption. We are not at the centre of the universe, we are not a special creation, we are descended from the animal kingdom by a system of chance happenings.

无论是新教还是天主教，教会都反对太阳是宇宙中心、地球绕太阳旋转的新教义。圣经说，上帝创造了地球，然后把太阳、月亮和星星安置在地球上方。最终，教会不得不让步，承认科学家的观点——就像它之前反对达尔文的进化论一样，两次都因此失去了极大的权威。

The church, in both its Protestant and Catholic forms, opposed the new teaching that the sun was at the centre of the universe and the earth rotated around it. God made the earth, said the Bible, and then set the sun and moon and stars above it. Eventually the church had to give way and declare that the scientists were right—as it did again after first contesting Darwin, with a great loss of authority on both occasions.

科学革命之后的一代人并不认为科学发现降低了人类的重要性。相反，他们认为，如果我们能够做到这一点——如果我们凭借理性推导出整个系统的运行规律，并用数学精确地描述它——那么我们就可以运用理性更进一步；我们可以将理性应用于人类生活，使其焕然一新。这种追求理性至上的愿望正是启蒙运动的动力所在。启蒙运动是十八世纪的一场思想运动，旨在运用理性重塑社会、政府、道德和神学。

The generation after the Scientific Revolution did not consider that its discoveries had reduced the significance of man. On the contrary, they thought if we can do this—if by our reason we have worked out how the whole system operates and described it exactly with our maths—then we can use our reason to go further; we can bring that reason to bear on human life and improve it out of all recognition. This desire to make reason sovereign is what animated the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement of the eighteenth century which aimed to apply reason to the reshaping of society, to government, to morality, to theology.

启蒙运动起源于法国，并在法国最为盛行。启蒙运动的学者们认为世界被无知和迷信所统治。社会中两大非理性力量分别是教会（即天主教会）和国王（法国的绝对君主）。教会和国王依靠民众的无知来维持其地位。教会兜售奇迹和地狱永罚的故事来维持秩序。国王则宣称自己受上帝任命，质疑他们的权威是不敬神的行为；民众别无选择，只能服从。一位启蒙运动的代表人物总结道：它的纲领是这样的：“我想看到最后一个国王被最后一个祭司的内脏勒死。”

The Enlightenment began and was strongest in France. The scholars of the Enlightenment saw the world as governed by ignorance and superstition. The two great irrational forces in the society were the church, that is the Catholic church, and the king, the absolute monarch of France. The church and the king maintained their positions by relying on the ignorance of the people. The church peddled stories of miracles and everlasting punishment in hell to keep the people in order. The kings peddled claims that they were ordained by God and that it was irreligious to question their authority; that people had no choice but to obey. One of the men of the Enlightenment summed up its program in this way: ‘I should like to see the last king strangled with the guts of the last priest.’

诚然，这是一种极端观点。启蒙运动并非革命运动，甚至算不上政治运动。它是由一群学者、作家、艺术家和历史学家组成的，他们相信随着理性和教育的传播，迷信和无知终将消散，人们将不再相信诸如奇迹或君主受神授权统治之类的无稽之谈。一旦民众接受了教育，启蒙自然会到来。然而，启蒙运动的领军人物并非民主主义者；他们乐于见到一位开明的统治者开始实施他们关于理性社会的构想。正如人们所说，十八世纪欧洲的一些君主是开明的专制君主。他们废除了野蛮的刑罚和酷刑；他们编纂了法律；他们开始着手教育民众。

Admittedly that was an extreme view. The Enlightenment was not a revolutionary movement; it was not even a political movement. It was a collection of scholars, writers, artists and historians who believed that as reason and education spread, superstition and ignorance would fall away and people would cease to believe in such nonsense as miracles or kings ruling by God’s permission. Once you educate the people, enlightenment will follow. But the leading figures of the Enlightenment were not democrats; they were quite happy to see an enlightened ruler begin to implement their plans for a society governed by reason. Some of the monarchs of eighteenth-century Europe were, as it is said, enlightened despots. They got rid of barbaric punishments and torture; they codified their laws; they began to do something about educating the people.

法国启蒙运动的伟大成就之一是编纂了一部百科全书。它是第一部伟大的现代百科全书，其显著之处在于，它并非我们今天所理解的那种由权威学者撰写的、枯燥乏味的百科全书。这部百科全书是一部激进的百科全书，因为它运用理性看待一切事物，并且不区分知识的等级。它并非像教会所希望的那样，从神学和上帝开始。那么，在这部百科全书中，你在哪里能找到上帝呢？它位于“D”（代表上帝）和“R”（代表宗教）之下。这是一部按字母顺序排列的知识索引，而这种按字母顺序排列的做法本身就是对教会及其自诩掌握最高真理的挑战。所有知识都以相同的方式对待，并接受同样的检验。关于敬拜，这部百科全书建议：“敬拜真神的方式绝不应偏离理性，因为上帝是理性的创造者……”

The great work of the French Enlightenment was the production of an encyclopedia. It is the first great modern encyclopedia and is notable because it was not, as we think of encyclopedias today, a staid authority written by established scholars. This was a radical encyclopedia because it applied reason to everything and it gave no hierarchy within knowledge. It did not start, as the church would like, with theology and God. Where do you find God in this encyclopedia? Under D (for Dieu) and R (for Religion). This is an alphabetical index to knowledge, and that very act of making it alphabetical was a defiance of the church and its claims to possess the highest truths. All knowledge was treated in the same way and all was subjected to the same test. On adoration, the encyclopedia advised: ‘The manner of adoring the true God ought never to deviate from reason, because God is the author of reason …’

由于十八世纪的法国仍然存在审查制度，编辑们必须非常谨慎地避免直接攻击教会或国王。不过，审查员态度友善，甚至曾建议把下一版的印版藏在他自己家里！我们可以通过查看诺亚方舟的条目来了解这部百科全书是如何应对这些棘手问题的。条目开头就问诺亚方舟有多大。它肯定非常大。它不仅要容纳欧洲每种动物两只，还要容纳其他地区的动物。整个世界。不仅仅是动物，因为在方舟上待了那么久，它们需要饲料才能活下去。两只羊肯定不够；为了喂饱狮子，至少需要数百只羔羊。这艘船一定非常巨大，然而圣经却说只有四个人参与建造。他们该是多么高大强壮啊！百科全书看似认真地进行了一番调查，实则揭示了这个故事的荒谬之处。

The editors had to be very careful of direct attacks on church or king because there was still a censorship operating in eighteenth-century France, though the censor was sympathetic and once suggested that the safest place to hide the plates for the next edition was in his own house! We can see how the encyclopedia navigated difficult territory by looking at the entry on Noah’s Ark. It begins by asking how big was Noah’s Ark. It must have been quite large. It had to accommodate not only two of each of the animals of Europe but also those of the rest of the world. And not just the animals, because being on the Ark for a long time they needed fodder to stay alive. Two sheep would not have been enough; there would have to have been hundreds of lambs in order to feed the lions. This must have been a huge ship and yet the Bible says only four people worked to make it. How big and strong they must have been! By seeming to make a genuine inquiry the encyclopedia showed the story to be an absurdity.

启蒙运动时期的人们并非一定反对上帝作为宇宙之初的创造者或推动者。他们反对的是他们所谓的迷信，以及教会如何利用迷信来控制人们的思想。他们憎恨教会宣称，如果不服从，就会下地狱。启蒙运动的核心信息是：宗教即迷信。因此，曾经是欧洲文明核心的宗教必须被边缘化，理性将取而代之。如果我们遵循理性与科学，就能取得进步。箭头引领我们离开书页，走出黑暗，走向光明。

The men of the Enlightenment were not necessarily opposed to God as a creator or moving spirit at the beginning of the universe. They objected to what they called superstition and how the church used it to gain control over men’s minds. They hated the church telling people that they would burn in hell if they were disobedient. The message of the Enlightenment was that religion is superstition. So religion, which was once central to European civilisation, must be sidelined. Reason will take its place. If we follow reason and science then there will be progress. The arrow takes us off the page, away from darkness towards the light.

进步是一个全新的概念。古人并不相信进步；他们认为事物存在着兴衰的循环；制度和社会在年轻时充满活力，随后便会走向腐败。历史的进程就是如此循环往复。教会也不相信进步，或者至少不相信脱离上帝而靠人类努力就能取得的进步，因为教会认为人性本恶。仅凭理性行事的人类永远无法建立一个完美的社会。

Progress was a new idea. The ancients did not believe in progress; they believed that there was a cycle of growth and decay; that institutions and society would be fresh and vigorous in their youth and then a process of corruption would set in. History would move through cycles. The church did not believe in progress, or at least not in progress by human effort independent of God, because it believed that humans were basically wicked. Humans guided solely by reason could never produce a perfect society.

启蒙思想在十八世纪末的法国大革命中首次得到检验。然而，令人遗憾的是，法国大革命并未带来推翻君主和教会、开启启蒙新时代的契机，反而带来了流血、暴政和独裁。但在此之前，这股奇特混合物中的最后一种元素——浪漫主义运动——已经脱离了其原本的根基。

THE IDEAS OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT had their first try-out in the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century. Sadly for the high hopes of what reason could do, the French Revolution did not bring in a new era of enlightenment when king and church were swept away; it brought bloodshed, tyranny, dictatorship. But before that happened the last element of the odd mixture was pulled from its moorings. This occurred with the Romantic movement of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

浪漫主义运动崇尚情感、情绪和一切激情。这一点与崇尚理性的启蒙运动截然相反。浪漫主义运动席卷欧洲，但在德国最为盛行，其思想在那里得到了最充分的阐述。浪漫主义运动的倡导者们不希望理性控制我们的情感和激情。他们认为，伟大的作家或艺术家不应只是优雅地重述古典题材；相反，他们应该袒露心扉，将激情、痛苦和绝望展现于世人面前。艺术应当充满情感、富有表现力、饱含张力。

The Romantic movement believed in feelings, emotions, all the passions. In this it was directly contrary to the Enlightenment, which put its faith in reason. It was a Europe-wide movement, but strongest in Germany, where its ideas were worked out most fully. These men of the Romantic movement did not want reason to control our emotions and passions. They thought of a great writer or a great artist not as reworking in an elegant way an old theme from the classics; instead a writer or an artist should be baring his soul, bringing his passions, his anguish, his despair to the forefront. Art should be emotional, expressive, highly charged.

这些德国思想是在有意识地与法国启蒙思想对立中发展起来的。德国人宣称，你不能抽象地谈论人和社会，因为人类会因地域而异。浪漫主义者说，我们的语言和历史塑造了我们；它们深深地融入了我们。因此，德国人拥有自己的历史和语言，注定会与法国人有所不同。根本不存在法国沙龙里那些知识分子所信奉的那种普世理性。我们是德国人，我们想要探寻德国人特有的“德国性”。德国浪漫主义者想要了解德国战士在与文明、罗马和基督教交织之前究竟是怎样的。他们试图将德国人从世俗的漩涡中拉出来。他们欣赏这些生活在森林里的人，欣赏他们的活力、热情和粗犷。他们不愿追随那些软弱的知识分子。他们敬重那些扎根于土地、真正了解“德国性”的德国人。

These German ideas developed in conscious opposition to the French ideas of the Enlightenment. The Germans declared that you cannot talk about man and society in the abstract because humankind is different depending on the country you are in. We are shaped, said the Romantics, by our language and our history; they are embedded in us. So the Germans, having their own history and their own language, are always going to be different from the French. There is no such thing as universal reason, which these intellectuals in French salons believe in. We are Germans and we want to find out about the Germanness of being German. The German Romantics wanted to know what the German warriors were like before they got mixed up with civilisation and with Rome and Christianity. They were pulling the Germans away from the mix. They liked these men of the woods, their vigour and vitality, their crudity. They did not want to follow weak intellectuals. They honoured Germans who had lived close to the soil and who knew what being German was all about.

我们对文化的现代兴趣和尊重始于此，那时知识分子开始收集民间文化。面对傲慢的法国知识分子空谈理性，最好的回应是穿上靴子去徒步旅行。去接触德国人民，去接触农民，记录他们的故事和歌谣：在那里，你才能找到真正的启迪。浪漫主义的理念是，文明是人为的；它束缚和限制了我们。只有在传统文化中，生活才能得到充分的体验。

Our modern interest and respect for culture begins at this point, when intellectuals first began collecting folk culture. The answer to the prattle about reason by arrogant French intellectuals was to put on your boots and go hiking. Go to the German people, go to the peasants, record their stories and songs: that is where you will find true enlightenment. The message of Romanticism was that civilisation is artificial; that it cramps and constrains us. It is within traditional culture that life is fully lived.

这种观点自此在西方社会根深蒂固，并在20世纪60年代达到顶峰。它的一种表现形式是解放的呼声：我们不要任何规则，我们过着简单、直接、朴素的生活，我们自己种粮食，自己织衣服。我们留长发，我们住在公社里，我们坦诚地表达自己的感受，也坦诚地与人交往。我们还要向更真实的人们学习——向工人、农民，甚至是“高贵的野蛮人”学习。

This view has been strong in Western society ever since. There was a great eruption of it in the 1960s. One form it takes is the cry for liberation: let’s not have any rules, let’s live in a simple, direct, plain way, let’s grow our own food and weave our own clothes. Let’s wear our hair long, let’s live in communes, let’s be frank with our own feelings and frank in our dealings with each other. And let’s borrow from more authentic people—from workers or peasants or ‘noble savages’.

浪漫主义者也为民族主义提供了意识形态——即形式思维——而民族主义在现代世界仍然是一股强大的力量。民族主义宣称，拥有各自文化和语言的不同民族必须共同生活，并拥有自己的政府。仅仅抽象地探讨何为良政是不够的；如果政府不是本民族的政府，它就不可能是良政。塞尔维亚人必须共同生活，拥有塞尔维亚政府；克罗地亚人必须共同生活，拥有克罗地亚政府。一个塞尔维亚人和克罗地亚人共同生活的国家，意味着我们塞尔维亚人和克罗地亚人无法充分表达自我。只有拥有自己的国家，塞尔维亚人的本质才能得以展现：这就是民族主义的意识形态。

The Romantics also provided the ideology—the formal thinking—for nationalism, which remains a huge force in the modern world. Nationalism proclaims that distinct peoples having their own culture and language must live together and have their own government. It is not enough to work out in the abstract what makes for good government; if the government is not the government of your own people it cannot be a good government. Serbs must live together and have a Serbian government; Croats must live together and have a Croatian government. A country where Serbs and Croats live together will mean that we as Serbs and Croats cannot fully express ourselves. The essence of being Serb will not be able to flower unless we have our own state: this is the ideology of nationalism.

浪漫主义运动信奉情感、文化、民族主义和解放，这支箭在图表上朝着与理性、科学和进步相反的方向飞去。

The Romantic movement believed in emotion, culture, nationalism and liberation, an arrow moving off the chart in the opposite direction to reason, science and progress.

我们的图表完成了。你可以看到自1400年以来发生的一切。图表中心有一个空缺，那里曾经是中世纪文明的中心——教会。文艺复兴、宗教改革、科学革命、启蒙运动、浪漫主义运动：所有这些都以不同的方式削弱了教会的权威。

Our chart is complete. You can see what has happened in the years since 1400. There is a hole in the centre where the church, which was at the centre of civilisation in the Middle Ages, once was. The Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, the Romantic movement: all in different ways reduced the authority of the church.

教会，也就是天主教会，如今仍然拥有一定的权威，如果你是一个开明的人，你或许仍然会这么认为。攻击教皇是值得的。当然，每个有识之士都认为节育是件好事，但教皇却说这违背了上帝的教诲，任何务实的考量都无法使其正确。即便西方大多数天主教徒在这个问题上无视教皇的指示，节育仍然是错误的。但总的来说，我们一直在经历一个漫长的世俗化进程。

The church, that is the Catholic church, still has some authority today and if you are an enlightened person you might still think it worthwhile to attack the pope. Surely every enlightened person believes that birth control is a good thing, but the pope says it is against God’s teaching and no pragmatic consideration can make it right. It remains wrong even if most Catholics in the West ignore the pope on this matter. But overall we have been following a great process of secularisation.

科学与进步，以及情感与解放，这两股力量依然强大。有时它们相互促进，有时它们又相互对立。思考一下，这两股力量是如何将我们分裂的。首先，请阅读圣经中关于人类起源的记载。

The twin forces of science and progress on the one hand and emotion and liberation on the other are still very strong. Sometimes they can reinforce each other; sometimes they are opposed to each other. Consider how these two forces still divide us. First, read the account in the Bible of the creation of humankind.

如果我建议我们放弃生物学和进化论，转而在学校教授基督教的起源说，你会怎么说？“不，不，”你会说，因为你是一位开明进步的人。我们谈论的是教育；如果家长想让孩子学习这些，他们可以自己教。如果我们保留生物学和进化论，同时也教授基督教的起源说呢？“不，不。”科学表明我们是由动物进化而来的；这才是应该教的。现在有很多疯狂的神创论者；我们不能给他们任何机会进入学校。

What would you say if I were to suggest that we drop biology and evolution and teach this account in schools? ‘No, no,’ you would say, for you are an enlightened, progressive person. This is education we are talking about; if parents want their children to learn this, they can teach it to them themselves. What if we retain biology and evolution and teach the Christian account as well? ‘No, no.’ Science shows that we evolved from animals; that’s all that can be taught. There are mad creationists about; we cannot afford to allow them any opening into schools.

现在请阅读另一个故事，一个澳大利亚原住民的故事。

Now read another story, an Australian Aboriginal one.

传统原住民生活在一个充满魔力的世界里。他们土地上的每一寸土地都蕴藏着故事，将他们的祖先与他们现在的生活紧密相连。你认为这些故事应该被保存下来吗？你会说“是的”。应该教给原住民儿童吗？“当然应该”。应该在学校里教授吗？“是的”。而事实上，学校里也确实在教授这些故事。

Traditional Aborigines live in an enchanted world. Every part of their land has its story that links their ancestors to their lives now. Do you think such stories should be preserved? ‘Yes,’ you will say. Should they be taught to Aboriginal children? ‘Yes, of course.’ Should they be taught in schools? ‘Yes.’ And they are.

如果让我扮演启蒙运动时期的人，我可能会说：“如果孩子们想了解泉水和岩池的起源，他们应该学习地质学。”

Playing the role of a man of the Enlightenment, I might say, ‘If children want to learn about the origins of springs and rockpools, they should study geology.’

“啊？”你会回答，“这不是重点。”

‘Eh?’ you will reply. ‘That’s not the point.’

如果我假装自己是启蒙运动时期的人，说“土著人生活在对黑暗和巫术的恐惧之中”，你根本没在听。你被迷惑了。土著人的生活似乎更完整、更健康、更自然。你沉浸在浪漫的幻想中。

If I say, pretending still to be a man of the Enlightenment, ‘Aborigines lived in fear of the dark and of sorcery,’ you are not listening. You are enchanted. The Aborigines seem to have lives that are more complete, more wholesome, more natural. You are lost to romantic feeling.

你似乎内心矛盾。你希望我们的孩子只接受科学；然而，你似乎又羡慕那些没有接触科学、传统信仰未受冲击的人。

You seem to be divided. For our children you want them to have only science; yet you seem envious of those people without science whose traditional beliefs have not been disrupted.

我们注定要分裂、纷争和迷茫。其他文明他们拥有单一的传统，而不是这三个奇怪的组合。他们不像我们一样，在道德和思想生活中经历着如此多的动荡、颠覆和混乱。

It is our fate to be torn, divided and confused. Other civilisations have a single tradition and not this odd threesome. They are not so liable to the turmoil, overturnings and confusion that we have had in our moral and intellectual life.

我们来自一个血统非常复杂的家庭，没有一个可以称之为家的地方。

We come from a very mixed parentage and there is no place we can call home.

我文艺复兴时期，学者和作家们认为希腊和罗马的艺术、文学和学术或许可以与之媲美，但永远无法超越。因此，他们称之为“经典”：最好的。两个世纪以来，人们一直在争论古代与现代的成就孰优孰劣。这场争论在十七世纪结束，当时希腊科学被证明在太阳、地球、行星和恒星的理论上是错误的。自此以后，人们对古典的敬畏之情有所减弱，而对现代人可能取得的成就则寄予了更多希望。但在某些领域，我们的起点仍然是希腊和罗马的作家。当我们研读这些巨匠的作品时，仍然能够感受到“古典韵味”。

IN THE RENAISSANCE, scholars and writers thought the art, literature and learning of Greece and Rome might perhaps be equalled but never excelled. That is why they labelled it classic: the best. For two centuries men debated the achievements of the ancients as against the moderns. The debate was settled in the seventeenth century when Greek science was shown to be wrong about the sun, the earth, the planets and the stars. From then on, there has been less reverence for the classics and more hope in what we moderns might achieve. But in some fields, our starting point remains the writers of Greece and Rome. It is still possible, as we look at these giants, to get ‘the classic feeling’.

雅典的三位伟大哲学家——苏格拉底、柏拉图和亚里士多德——至今仍是哲学界的中坚力量。有人说，整个西方哲学都只是柏拉图思想的注脚。这三位哲学家关系密切。柏拉图记录了苏格拉底的言论，苏格拉底以与同伴讨论哲学的方式进行哲学思考；亚里士多德则是柏拉图的学生。

The three great philosophers of Athens—Socrates, Plato and Aristotle—are still great forces in philosophy. It has been said that all Western philosophy is a footnote to Plato. The three men were intimately connected. Plato recorded the words of Socrates, who conducted philosophy as a discussion with his companions; Aristotle was Plato’s pupil.

苏格拉底并不声称自己传授真理。他阐述的是通往真理的方法，其根本在于质疑一切，不轻易接受任何表面现象，并假定普通人的观点缺乏理性基础。苏格拉底会提出一个看似简单的问题：什么是好人？他的同伴会给出答案，而苏格拉底会指出这个答案存在巨大的漏洞。于是，这个人或其他什么人会再次尝试——但这一次会更加谨慎。他们会进行更多的提问和更深入的探讨。苏格拉底相信，只要头脑清醒敏锐，就能领悟真理。无需苦苦寻觅或深入研究。真理本来就存在；你需要培养自己的思维才能领悟它。

Socrates did not claim to teach the truth. He set out the method to reach it, which was fundamentally to question everything, accept nothing at face value, and assume that ordinary opinion will have no rational basis. Socrates would ask a seemingly simple question: What is the good man? One of his companions would give a reply, which Socrates would proceed to show had a great hole in it. So this man or someone else would have another stab—but more carefully this time. There would be more questioning and more refining. Socrates believed that if your mind was clear and sharp, you could reach the truth. You didn’t have to seek it out or conduct research. The truth exists; you have to cultivate your mind to grasp it.

这种方法至今仍以他的名字命名：苏格拉底教学法。它类似于大学辅导课的教学模式，教师不是来发号施令的，而是帮助学生清晰思考并进行富有成效的讨论。例如，可能会出现这样的对话：

This method still bears his name: the Socratic method. It is meant to be what happens in university tutorials, where the tutor is not there to lay down the law but to help students think clearly and have a fruitful discussion. So there might be an exchange like this:

这种方法有个陷阱。聪明的人无需掌握太多知识就能用这种方法取得成功。

There is a trap to this method. Clever people can do well in it without having to know very much.

苏格拉底、柏拉图和亚里士多德生活在公元前五世纪和四世纪的雅典，当时雅典还是一个民主政体。他们都批判民主，而苏格拉底最终触怒了民主的雅典。他被控亵渎神灵、败坏青年道德，并因此受审。他的辩护理由是，他从未强迫任何人接受他的观点；他只是向人们提问，让他们为自己的信仰找到理由。由501名公民组成的陪审团判定他有罪，但票数非常接近。陪审团随后需要决定如何判刑。控方要求判处死刑。此时，被告本应表现出悔意，带上妻儿，恳求宽恕。但苏格拉底拒绝卑躬屈膝。他反问道，对于一个鼓励你提升精神和道德修养的人，合适的惩罚是什么？或许终身养老金！你们可能会判处流放，但如​​果我被逐出一个城市，我也会去另一个城市做同样的事。苏格拉底说：“无论我在哪里，我都不能……”  不加质疑地生活：“未经审视的人生不值得过。 ”你们或许会罚款，但我无力支付；我并不富有。他的追随者们原本对他的表现感到绝望，却突然站起来，表示愿意支付巨额罚款。但不出所料，陪审团最终判处死刑。

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle lived in Athens when it was a democracy, in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. They were all critics of democracy and Socrates fell foul of democratic Athens. He was put on trial for neglecting the gods and corrupting the morals of the young. His defence was that he had not insisted that anyone adopt his views; he merely questioned people so that they would have reasons for their beliefs. He was found guilty by a jury of 501 citizens, but it was a close vote. The jury then had to decide what penalty to impose. The prosecution asked for death. At this point, the accused was meant to become apologetic, to bring forward his wife and children and plead for leniency. Socrates refused to grovel. What, he asked, would be the appropriate penalty for someone who has encouraged you to improve your mental and moral wellbeing? Perhaps a pension for life! You might impose banishment as the penalty, but if thrown out of one town I would do the same in the next. Wherever I am, said Socrates, I cannot  live without questioning: ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ You might impose a fine, but I have very little to offer; I am not a rich man. His followers, who had been despairing at this performance, jumped up and offered to pay a hefty fine. But the jury, not surprisingly, opted for death.

在雅典，死刑通常立即执行，但这次却因宗教节日而推迟。苏格拉底本可以逃脱，当局或许也希望他能逃脱。但他拒绝了。他问道，既然不能永生，为何还要拼命抓住生命不放？人生的目的不是活着，而是活得精彩。在雅典的法律下，我过着美好的生活，我已准备好接受惩罚。他始终保持着一种哲学式的思考。当他的锁链被解开时，他感叹痛苦与快乐竟如此接近。

Usually executions in Athens were immediate, but this one was delayed because of a religious festival. Socrates could have escaped and the authorities probably half wished he would. But he refused this option. Why scramble, he asked, to hold onto life if I can’t live forever? The aim is not to live, but to live well. I have had a good life under the laws of Athens and I am ready to accept my penalty. He remained very philosophical to the end. When his chains were taken off, he commented how close pain and pleasure are.

处决方式是饮下毒芹汁。他的同伴们 恳求他延缓服毒；毒药必须在当天结束前喝下，而太阳尚未落山。苏格拉底回答说，如果他苟且偷生，只会让自己显得可笑。他平静地饮下了毒药，没有丝毫厌恶之情。毒药致人死亡的速度非常快。

Execution was by the drinking of the poison hemlock. His companions pleaded with him for delay; the poison had to be drunk by the end of the day and the sun was not yet behind the hills. Socrates replied that he would make himself ridiculous in his own eyes if he clung to life. He took the poison quite calmly and with no sign of distaste. It kills very quickly.

我以一种同情苏格拉底的方式讲述了他的死。是否有可能换一种方式讲述这个故事，让你同情控方呢？控方的儿子曾参加过苏格拉底的哲学讨论，后来辍学酗酒。控方说苏格拉底很危险，难道不是对的吗？如果一切都受到质疑，人们就会失去方向；我们不能只靠理性生活；必须要有习俗、习惯和宗教来指引个人，才能使社会得以维系。

I have told of the death of Socrates in a way that is sympathetic to the philosopher. Is it possible to tell the story so that your sympathies are with the prosecution? The prosecutor’s son had attended Socrates’ philosophical discussions and become a drop-out and a drunk. Wasn’t the prosecutor right to say Socrates was dangerous? If everything is questioned, people lose their bearings; we can’t live by reason alone; there has to be custom, habit, religion to give direction to individuals and make society possible.

这很难反驳。我们文化中的偏见倾向于苏格拉底。虽然并非一直如此，但柏拉图关于他之死的记载流传至今，使他成为质疑精神的守护神。

This is a hard case to argue. The bias in our culture is for Socrates. It has not always been so, but Plato’s account of his death has survived to make him the patron saint of questioning.

柏拉图至今仍是哲学核心问题——感官经验是否真正指引我们认识现实——的出发点。柏拉图认为，我们在世间所见所闻，不过是存在于另一个崇高精神领域的完美表象 。这里存在着平凡的餐桌，但在另一个世界也存在着完美无瑕的餐桌。即使是正义与善这样的抽象概念，也存在于另一个世界。完美形态存在于别处。人类源于此世；如今，他们必须通过运用心智和精神，重新发现它。柏拉图是伟大的唯心主义哲学家：他摒弃了唯物主义的世界观。

Plato is still the starting point for a central question of philosophy: Is the experience of our senses a true guide to reality? Plato believed that what we see and experience in the world are only shadowy representations of what exists in perfect form in another exalted, spiritual realm. There are ordinary tables here but there is also a table in perfect form elsewhere. Even abstract ideas like the just and the good exist in perfect form elsewhere. Humans have come from this realm; they now, by the exercise of their mind and spirit, have to rediscover it. Plato is the great idealist philosopher: he rejected a materialist account of the world.

柏拉图知道，那些讲常识的人会拒绝他的教诲；但他为他们准备了一个至今仍然有力的答案。想象一群人被锁链束缚在一个洞穴前。他们看不到身后，只能看到洞穴内部。在他们身后和上方有一条路，路的尽头燃着一堆篝火，火光照射进洞穴。当行人、牲畜和马车沿着路经过时，它们的影子会投射在洞穴的后墙上，遮挡住篝火的光芒。被锁链束缚的人们只能看到影子；他们会给这些影子命名，讨论它们；他们会对这些影子进行推理；他们会认为这些影子就是现实。然后，把一个人从洞穴里带到户外。他起初会被阳光刺得睁不开眼，然后会被色彩和三维物体所震撼和困惑。但他会说：“在洞穴里，我们以为……是的，在洞穴里，你看不到真相。”

Plato knew that common-sense people would reject his teaching; for them he had an answer that is still powerful. Imagine a group of people shackled in front of a cave. They can’t see behind them, they can only look into the cave. Behind and above them is a road and beyond the road is a large fire, which casts its light into the cave. As people, animals and carts pass along the road, they will cast shadows on the back wall of the cave as they block out the fire’s light. The shackled people will see only shadows; they will name them and discuss them; they will reason about them; they will think these shadows are the reality. Then, take one person from the cave into the open air. He will be blinded at first by the light, then confused and astounded by colour and objects having three dimensions. But down there, he says, we thought … Yes, down there you could not see the truth.

亚里士多德是柏拉图的学生，他系统地阐述了关于自然世界和宇宙（包括地球和天界）的知识。在十七世纪的科学革命中，正是他以地球为宇宙中心的理论遭到了推翻。然而，亚里士多德关于清晰思考的原则却流传了下来。他创立了三段论，这是一种由三个部分组成的论证，它以两个前提（一个一般性陈述和一个特殊性陈述）开头，然后得出结论。以下是一个例子：

Aristotle, Plato’s pupil, was the great systematiser of knowledge about the natural world and the universe, both the earth and the heavenly realms. In the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century it was his teaching, which had the earth as the centre of the universe, that was overthrown. However, Aristotle’s rules about clear thinking survive. He gave us the syllogism, a three-part statement, which begins with two premises (a general and a specific statement) and then draws a conclusion. Here is an example:

这个结论正确吗？一个三段论要得出正确的结论，两个前提都必须为真，并且论证有效。在这个例子中，猫确实有四条腿，而且米利根，我们姑且称之为一只猫。所以前提为真。但是这个论证有效吗？是的——如果米利根是一只猫，并且如果所有的猫都有四条腿，那么米利根必然有四条腿。以下是一个关于米利根的无效论证：

Is this a correct conclusion? For a syllogism to have a correct conclusion, the two premises must be true and the argument valid. In this case, cats do indeed have four legs and Milligan, shall we say, is a cat. So the premises are true. But is the argument valid? Yes—if Milligan is a cat, and if all cats have four legs, Milligan must indeed have four legs. Here’s an invalid argument about Milligan:

即使前提成立，结论也是错误的，因为米利根和猫之间没有任何联系（他很可能是一条狗）。论证本身有效但结论错误是可能的；这种情况发生在两个前提中任何一个不成立时。例如：

The conclusion is incorrect, even if the premises are true, because there is no link drawn between Milligan and cats (he could well be a dog). It is possible to have a valid argument but an incorrect conclusion; this would happen if either of the premises were not true. For example:

这个论证本身是有效的，但结论是错误的，因为第一个前提不成立。有一套正式的规则可以用来识别和命名三段论中所有可能存在的推理错误。由此可见，为什么人们常说希腊人教会了我们如何理性思考。

This argument is valid but the conclusion is incorrect because the first premise is not true. There are formal rules for identifying and naming all the ways that syllogisms can embody faulty reasoning. You can see why it is said that the Greeks taught us how to think rationally.

现代西方医学起源于古希腊，尤其是希波克拉底。希波克拉底生活在公元前五世纪雅典的黄金时代。他的著作流传至今，但几乎可以肯定的是，这些著作是由几位作者根据他的方法和原则汇编而成。希波克拉底运用理性来理解疾病，他认为疾病有其自然原因，并将其与魔法、巫术和神灵干预区分开来。他仔细研究了疾病的病程以及人们感染疾病的环境。通过试图发现疾病发生的规律，他成为了第一位流行病学家。他要求医生必须恪守道德，谨慎行事，并致力于患者的福祉；事实上，他的工作定义了医学这一职业。直到最近，医学生还在宣读他制定的、以他的名字命名的誓言：希波克拉底誓言。顺便一提，它也反映了希波克拉底时代的医学状况：

Modern Western medicine traces its origins to the Greeks and in particular to Hippocrates, who lived in Athens in its golden age, the fifth century BC. His writings have survived, though almost certainly they are a compilation of several authors working according to his methods and principles. Hippocrates applied reason to the understanding of disease, assuming that it had natural causes and separating it from magic, witchcraft and divine intervention. He made a close study of the courses of diseases and the circumstances in which people caught them. In attempting to see patterns in the occurrence of disease, he was the first epidemiologist. He laid a heavy obligation on doctors to be moral, discreet people committed to the wellbeing of their patients; in fact, his work defined the profession of medicine. Until recently, medical students took an oath that he developed and which bore his name: the Hippocratic oath. It incidentally reveals the state of medicine in Hippocrates’ day:

但希波克拉底也给西方医学带来了一个巨大的误区，这个误区源于希腊人对简洁性的追求。他认为人体健康取决于四种元素或体液的正确平衡：血液、黏液、黄胆汁和黑胆汁。直到19世纪，当人们认为血液过多是疾病的根源时，这种观点一直是使用水蛭疗法的权威依据。从这个意义上讲，希波克拉底被奉为经典的时间过长了。

But Hippocrates also burdened Western medicine with a great error that arose from the Greek search for simplicity. He taught that the health of the body depended on the correct balance of four elements or humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile. Until the nineteenth century, this was the authority for applying leeches when too much blood was identified as the source of illness. In this regard, Hippocrates was accepted as a classic for too long.

希腊人在几乎所有学科领域都优于罗马人，唯独在法律领域例外。罗马法律是自然发展起来的，法官的判决和法律专家的评注逐渐成为法律的组成部分。尽管罗马人比希腊人更加务实，但他们的法律思想却带有浓厚的希腊理想主义色彩。在研究被征服民族的法律时，他们致力于寻找其中的共性：所有人都认同的法律是什么？这种探究最终促成了这样一种观念：存在一种自然法——一种完美形式的法律——它应该被用来完善任何特定社会的法律，任何致力于正义的社会都不应违背它。

The Greeks were superior to the Romans in nearly all branches of learning, but not in law. Roman law grew organically, with the rulings of judges and the commentaries of legal experts becoming part of what constituted the law. Though the Romans were more down-to-earth people than the Greeks, their legal thinking had more than a touch of Greek idealism. As they examined the laws of the peoples they had conquered, they were interested in finding the commonalities. What did all people agree should be the law? This line of enquiry led to the notion that there was a natural law—law in perfect form—which should be used to refine the laws of any particular society and which no society committed to justice should flout.

最完整的罗马法汇编是公元六世纪由查士丁尼皇帝下令编纂的。查士丁尼皇帝统治着东罗马帝国，该帝国在日耳曼人的入侵中幸存下来。查士丁尼法典在十一世纪被重新发现后，产生了巨大的影响。这种情况在英国则相对较小，因为英国的普通法已经相当完善，但英国的合同法却影响深远。受代码影响。以下是与合同相关的两个问题。

The most complete compendium of Roman law was assembled in the sixth century AD by the order of Emperor Justinian, who ruled the Eastern Empire, which had survived the assault of the Germans. Justinian’s Code, when it was rediscovered in the eleventh century, was immensely influential. This was less so in England, whose own common law was already well established, but the English law of contract was influenced by the code. Here are two questions that relate to contract.

考虑一下租马合同。如果租来的马被盗，承租人的责任是什么？答案是：他必须赔偿马匹的损失，因为他本应照管好马匹。（我们现在通过保险来解决这个问题，而罗马人没有保险。）但如果马匹是被暴力盗走的，承租人则无需承担责任。他不必为了保护他人的马匹而让自己身处险境。但是，如果承租人将马匹租借超过约定的时间，即使马匹是被暴力盗走的，他也必须承担 损失。

Consider the contract for hire. If a horse out on hire is stolen, what is the liability of the hirer? Answer: he must pay the cost of the horse to the owner because he should have taken care of it. (We now deal with this by insurance, which the Romans did not have.) But if the horse was stolen by violence, the hirer was not liable. He did not have to put himself in danger to protect someone else’s horse. But if the hirer had kept the horse beyond the stipulated time, he was responsible for the loss, even if the horse was taken by violence.

假设一位金匠受雇制作一枚戒指。这究竟是 戒指的买卖合同，还是金匠的雇佣合同？这两种合同适用不同的 规则。答案取决于谁提供黄金。如果顾客提供黄金，则合同为金匠的雇佣合同；如果金匠提供黄金，则合同为买卖合同。

Consider a goldsmith being engaged to make a ring. Is this a contract for sale of the ring or a contract for hire of the goldsmith? Different rules applied to these different contracts. The answer depended on who supplied the gold. If the customer supplied the gold, the contract was for hire of the goldsmith. If the goldsmith supplied the gold, it was a contract for sale.

你可以看出这部法律是多么全面详尽，编纂者们又是多么决心在各种人类交往中确立公正的原则。我们或许会选择不同的做法 ，但无论我们面临什么问题，我们都知道它早已被考虑在内。在这座伟大的思想殿堂——几个世纪以来无数智慧的结晶——面前，我们感到自身的渺小。这是一种经典的感受。

You can see how comprehensive and detailed the law was and the determination of the compilers to establish just principles in all the variety of human transactions. We might choose to do things differently but whatever problem we face, we know that it has already been considered. Before this great intellectual edifice—the work of many minds over centuries—we feel small. That’s the classic feeling.

T日耳曼人入侵罗马帝国是三次大规模入侵中的第一次。紧随其后的是穆斯林，然后是北欧人或维京人。经过多年的动荡，欧洲社会逐渐稳定下来，随后开始扩张——通过十字军东征夺取圣地，将穆斯林逐出西班牙，然后通过海路掠夺世界财富。

THE GERMAN IN VASION OF THE Roman Empire was the first of three great invasions. Following the Germans came the Muslims and then the Norsemen or Vikings. After years of turmoil, European society stabilised and then itself began expanding—in crusades to the Holy Land, to drive the Muslims from Spain, and then by sea to lay claim to the world’s treasures.

我们谈到罗马帝国的灭亡，并给出一个具体的日期：公元476年。但当时只有帝国的西部灭亡。东部，也就是讲希腊语的帝国，又延续了1000年，其首都是君士坦丁堡。君士坦丁堡最初就是一座希腊城邦。它以拜占庭（拉丁语为Byzantium）之名而闻名，东罗马帝国也因此得名：拜占庭帝国。我们稍后会讨论它的衰落。

We speak of the fall of the Roman Empire and we give it a date: 476 AD. But only the western half of the empire fell at this time. The eastern, Greek-speaking half survived for another 1000 years with Constantinople as its capital. This had originally been a Greek city with the name Byzantion (in Latin, Byzantium), which gave the eastern empire its name: the Byzantine Empire. We will discuss its fall later.

对于西罗马帝国而言，“灭亡”一词容易产生误导——单一的日期也同样如此。当时并没有蛮族在边境集结，也没有蛮族稳步南下，罗马人节节败退，更没有在罗马城内进行最后的抵抗。事实并非如此。这是一次相当特殊的入侵。你可以在地图上 追踪各个日耳曼部落的迁徙路线。

For the western empire, ‘fall’ gives a misleading picture—and so does a single date. There wasn’t a massing of barbarians on the borders, a steady advance southwards, the Romans retreating, a last-ditch stand at Rome. It wasn’t like that at all. This was a rather unusual invasion. You can follow the movements of the different German tribes on the map.

北部边界从未真正成为完全的屏障。双方一直都有在指定的过境点进行接触，罗马士兵在那里监督货物的交换。有时，罗马会超越常规边界；公元1世纪，罗马军队渡过莱茵河，深入到如今的德国境内。这是一次短暂的入侵，因为日耳曼人摧毁了这些军团，并在此过程中对罗马有了更深入的了解。

The northern borders had never been complete barriers. There had always been contact at recognised crossing places where Roman soldiers supervised the exchange of goods. Sometimes Rome had pushed beyond the usual boundaries; in the first century AD, Roman troops crossed the Rhine and advanced a long way into what is now Germany. That was a short-lived incursion because the Germans destroyed these legions, and in doing so got to know more about Rome.

公元三世纪，一系列日耳曼人的入侵几乎摧毁了罗马帝国。当时罗马统治极度动荡，皇帝更迭频繁，对入侵者几乎没有抵抗。帝国最终幸存下来，但境内已形成日耳曼人聚居区。君士坦丁大帝于公元313年正式支持基督教，他继位后，试图重整并巩固帝国。

In the third century AD, there had been a series of German invasions which nearly destroyed the empire. It was a time of great instability in the rule of Rome; a number of emperors came and went very quickly and very little resistance was offered to the invaders. The empire survived but it now had enclaves of Germans settled within it. Constantine, the emperor who gave official support to Christianity in 313, followed this time of chaos and attempted generally to reorganise and strengthen the empire.

定居在罗马帝国境内的日耳曼人被征召入伍，因此在五世纪抵御外敌入侵的战役中，日耳曼人同时效力于交战双方。或许罗马士兵中有一半甚至更多是日耳曼人，而且日耳曼人还担任过将军。罗马人不得不让日耳曼人为他们而战，这似乎不言而喻地表明了帝国的衰弱。在二十世纪初，种族主义思想盛行之时，对于罗马帝国的衰落有一个清晰的解释：罗马人犯了一个错误，那就是将自己的命运拱手让给了一个“劣等民族”。当然，如今这种粗暴的观点早已不复存在。但是，一个依靠外来者来保卫自身的帝国，其根基注定不稳。

Germans settled within the empire were recruited into the Roman army so that in the battles to contain the invasions of the fifth century, Germans were fighting on both sides. Maybe half or even more of the Roman soldiers were Germans and Germans were also serving as generals. It seems a self-evident sign of the empire’s weakness that Romans had to get Germans to fight for them. In the early part of the twentieth century, when racial thinking was very strong, there was a clear answer to why Rome fell: the Romans made the mistake of handing over their destiny to an inferior people. In this crude form the idea is, of course, now not entertained. But an empire relying on newcomers to defend it is not in good shape.

德国人并无意占领帝国；他们是入侵者，并非意在征服。他们的目的是分得一部分战利品，定居下来，过上富足的生活。他们很乐意承认皇帝的统治。

The Germans had no desire to take over the empire; they were invaders who did not intend to be conquerors. Their aim was to get part of the loot, to settle on land and to live well. They were quite happy to acknowledge the rule of the emperor.

当然，皇帝们不希望他们劫掠自己的领土。他们派出军队击败或驱逐入侵者；但只有少数几次成功。通常的结果是，日耳曼人仍然留在或多或少独立的飞地中。最终，皇帝的控制范围所剩无几。尽管如此，日耳曼人仍然认为应该有一位皇帝。很长一段时间里，入侵意大利的入侵者扶植一位罗马人为皇帝。最终，一位日耳曼将军结束了这场闹剧。他不再扶植傀儡，而是决定公开统治。这就是公元476年发生的事情。这并非一场大规模的决战。日耳曼酋长奥多亚克接管了政权，但他没有自称皇帝，而是自称意大利国王。他将西罗马皇帝的象征物——皇冠和华丽的长袍——打包送往君士坦丁堡。当时仍然有一位皇帝，他也承认皇帝的宗主权。德国人被他们无意中征服的土地的荣光所迷惑。

The emperors, of course, did not want them marauding through their territories. They sent forth armies to defeat or eject the invaders; only occasionally were they successful. Usually the end point was that the Germans remained in more or less independent enclaves. Finally there was very little left in the emperor’s control. The Germans thought nevertheless that there should be an emperor. For a long time the invaders of Italy propped up a Roman as emperor. Finally one German general called an end to this farce. Instead of propping up puppets, he decided to rule openly himself. That is what happened in 476. Not a big, final battle. Odoacer, a German chieftain, took charge, but he did not call himself emperor. He called himself King of Italy. The regalia of the Emperor of the West—the crown and the great robes—he packed up and sent to Constantinople, where there was still an emperor, whose overlordship he acknowledged. The Germans were captured by the glory of what they had inadvertently conquered.

西方不再是一个统一的帝国，而是由各个日耳曼部落建立的一系列小王国。这些王国兴衰更迭迅速；它们无力维持旧罗马的行政体系，税收很快就停止了。这些征服者基本上力不从心；他们缺乏治理任何稳定国家的经验。他们寻求帮助，最终在旧罗马的土地阶级和主教那里找到了支持。新旧文化的融合在上层发生，但这种融合究竟向下渗透到了什么程度呢？

Instead of an empire in the west, there were now a series of mini-kingdoms, set up by the different German tribes. They rose and fell rapidly; they were unable to maintain the old Roman administration so the collection of taxes soon ceased. These conquerors were basically out of their depth; they were not experienced in running any sort of settled state. They were looking for help and found it in the old Roman landed class and the bishops. The melding of old and new was happening at the top, but how far down did it go?

由于这一时期的文字记载极少，很难详细了解当时的情况。当时的德国人大多不识字；社会动荡混乱，留存下来的记录寥寥无几。显然，这并非一场大规模的入侵，德国人并非将当地居民驱逐出境，也不是男性战士的劫掠。德国人带着妇女儿童前来，意图定居。他们在一些地方形成了密集的聚落；而在另一些地方，则较为分散。为了确定定居者的身份，历史学家们求助于考古证据。德国人的埋葬方式与罗马人不同，因此，如果许多死者都按照德国人的习俗埋葬，那么就可以推断德国人的定居点相当密集。语言学家也能提供帮助。如果一个村庄的名字在这一时期变成了德语词汇，那么就可以推断这里曾是德国人的密集聚落。但或许这种证据还不够充分；可能只需要一位德国军阀宣布要更改村名就足够了。但如果田地的名称也发生了变化，这才是更有力的证据。实际上，在这个地区从事这项工作的是德国人。

It is hard to know in detail because there is very little written evidence from this period. The Germans were illiterate; it was a time of turmoil and chaos and few records survive. It is clear that it was not a massive invasion, with Germans driving the existing inhabitants before them. Nor was it a raid of male warriors. The Germans brought their women and children with them and intended to settle. In some places they formed dense settlements; in others they were scattered quite thinly. To establish who settled where, historians have called on archaeological evidence. The Germans buried people in a different way from the Romans, so if many of the dead are buried in the German way, then German settlement can be assumed to have been fairly dense. Linguists can also help. If a name of a village changes at this time to something German, the assumption is that this was a dense German settlement. But perhaps this evidence is not strong enough; it might have taken only one German warlord to say the name was going to change. But if the names of the fields change, this is better evidence. It is actually the Germans who were doing the work in this part of the world.

罗马法和日耳曼法曾一度并存。人们会根据其种族出身接受审判。罗马法拥有清晰的正义原则，法官会根据具体案件适用这些原则。早期的法官是法律的制定者，他们的判决随后被汇编成法典；其中最伟大的法典是由东罗马皇帝查士丁尼于六世纪编纂的。而日耳曼法则是一种规范化的血仇，法官们持有……戒指。受害者及其亲属向肇事者及其亲属寻求赔偿。即使是谋杀案，也通过向死者亲属支付赔偿金来解决——赔偿金额取决于受害者的身份地位，贵族的赔偿金是普通人的三倍。

For a time, Roman law and German law operated alongside each other. You were tried according to your ethnic origin. Roman law had clear principles of justice, which judges applied in particular cases. The early judges were makers of the law and their decisions were then gathered into codes; the greatest was assembled by the eastern emperor, Justinian, in the sixth century. German law, on the other hand, was a regularised form of vendetta, with judges holding the ring. Injured parties and their kin sought recompense from offenders and their kin. Even in cases of murder, the matter was settled by payment to the kin of the murdered person—how great the payment depending on the status of the victim, an aristocrat being worth three times an ordinary person.

罗马人通过检验证据和证人证言来确定罪与非罪；日耳曼人则通过火刑、水刑或决斗来审判。例如，嫌疑人的手臂会被放入沸水中；如果三天后手臂没有愈合，嫌疑人就被判有罪。嫌疑人会被扔进水中；如果他们浮起来，就被判有罪；如果他们沉下去，就被判无罪。两方因土地纠纷而决斗，胜者被宣布为正义的一方。

The Romans established guilt or innocence by the examination of evidence and witnesses; the Germans in trial by ordeal of fire, water or battle. For example, a suspect’s arm was placed in boiling water; if the arm was not healed after three days, the suspect was guilty. Suspects were thrown into water; if they floated they were guilty, if they sank they were innocent. Two parties in dispute over land would be set to battle and the winner declared to be in the right.

这两个体系逐渐融合为一。在意大利和法国南部，罗马法占据主导地位；在法国北部，德意志法则更为盛行。无论在何处，神判法都由神父在场，以确保上帝做出正确的判决。在这一问题上，罗马教会一直沿用德意志法的做法，直到十二世纪，随着查士丁尼法典的重新发现，教会才受到影响，神父们被告知不得参与神判。

Gradually the two systems merged into one. Roman law held greater sway in the mix in Italy and southern France, German law in northern France. Everywhere, the trial by ordeal operated with priests present to ensure that God produced the correct outcome. In this matter the Roman church went the German way until the twelfth century, when the church was inf luenced by the rediscovery of Emperor Justinian’s Code and priests were told not to participate in ordeals.

德国人在入侵后不久便皈依了基督教，放弃了他们原有的神祇，还有一些人放弃了阿里乌教派——一种异端基督教派别，一些德国人在入侵前就已经皈依了该教派。阿里乌教派认为，耶稣既然是上帝之子，就必然是次等的存在，不可能与上帝平起平坐。这种异端邪说一度在东方盛行，并通过使德国人皈依基督教的传教士传播到了德国。

The Germans became Christian soon after the invasion, giving up their own gods and in other cases giving up Arianism, a heretical version of Christianity to which some Germans had been converted before the invasions. Arians believed that since Jesus was the son of God, he must be a lesser person and could not be the equal of God. For a time this heresy was strong in the east and was carried to the Germans by the missionary who had converted them.

因此，从很多方面来看，“罗马的衰落”都具有误导性，尤其是在宗教方面：罗马帝国的官方宗教及其教会幸存了下来，并被入侵者所接受。这正是欧洲文明的基石。我们已经有相应的表述：日耳曼战士支持罗马基督教教会，而该教会保存了希腊和罗马的学术传统。

So in many ways the ‘fall of Rome’ is misleading and most misleading in regard to religion: the official religion of the Roman Empire and its church survived and both were embraced by the invaders. This is the foundation point of European civilisation. We already have a formulation to embody it: German warriors supported a Roman Christian church which preserved Greek and Roman learning.

西方只有一个日耳曼部落建立了长久的国家，那就是法兰克王国。正如地图所示，法兰克王国疆域辽阔，涵盖了现代法国以及德国、西班牙和意大利的部分地区。“法国”这个名字源于法兰克人，因此是德语词源。法兰克王国在查理大帝（或称查理曼大帝）统治时期达到鼎盛。查理大帝去世后，王国分崩离析。现代法国并非法兰克王国的直接继承者；我们今天所知的法国是由后来的历代君主逐步建立起来的。

ONLY ONE GERMAN TRIBE IN THE WEST produced a long-lasting state; this was the kingdom of the Franks, which grew, as you see on the map, to cover modern France and parts of Germany, Spain and Italy. The name ‘France’ derives from the Franks and hence is German in origin. The Frankish kingdom reached its greatest extent under the rule of Charles the Great or Charlemagne. After his death, the kingdom broke up. Modern France is not the direct descendant of the Frankish kingdom; France as we know it had to be put slowly together by its later kings.

德国人入侵不列颠的方式有所不同。现代英格兰的大部分地区当时都属于罗马帝国，而苏格兰则不在其列。罗马人进入不列颠的时间较晚——公元1世纪——而且撤离得也早。他们于公元410年离开，因为皇帝希望将驻扎在那里的军队调回帝国，以抵御德国人的入侵。罗马人离开时，不列颠人的本土社会依然完整，并未被罗马人三百年的统治彻底摧毁。凯尔特语也得以幸存。到了五、六世纪，日耳曼民族——盎格鲁人、撒克逊人和朱特人——渡过英吉利海峡，入侵英格兰。这更像是一场彻底的征服。不列颠人被彻底征服，他们的社会仅在苏格兰、威尔士和康沃尔幸存下来。

The German invasion of Britain took a different form. Most of modern England was in the Roman Empire; Scotland was not. The Romans went to Britain late—only in the first century AD—and they departed early. They left in 410 AD because the emperor wanted the troops stationed there brought back to defend the empire against the Germans. When the Romans left, the native society of the Britons was still intact; it had not been obliterated by 300 years of Roman settlement. The Celtic language survived. Then in the fifth and sixth centuries, German peoples—the Angles, Saxons and Jutes—crossed the Channel and invaded England. This was more like a complete conquest. The Britons were over-run and their societies survived only in Scotland, Wales and in Cornwall.

英格兰逐渐演变成一个完全日耳曼化的社会，拥有众多独立的王国，并且信奉异教。盎格鲁人、撒克逊人和朱特人并非任何形式的基督徒。随后，传教士从爱尔兰和罗马来到英格兰，试图将这些新来者皈依基督教。爱尔兰在英格兰基督教化过程中所扮演的角色，是基督教得以延续的传奇故事之一。基督教起源于罗马帝国的远东地区；从那里传播到整个帝国；之后，它跨越帝国疆界，抵达爱尔兰。在爱尔兰，基督教发展出一种特殊的形态，因为它是在一个非罗马社会中传播的。当西罗马帝国遭到入侵时，爱尔兰人幸免于难；他们随后使英格兰重新基督教化，并向欧洲各地派遣传教士。英国人开始轻视爱尔兰人，称他们为“沼泽爱尔兰人”；而爱尔兰人则自诩为基督教世界的救星。

England became a completely German society, with a number of separate kingdoms, and pagan. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes were not Christians of any sort. Then, from Ireland and from Rome, missionaries went to England to convert these newcomers to Christianity. The role of Ireland in the conversion of England is one of the amazing stories of the survival of Christianity. Christianity began in the far east of the Roman Empire; from there it spread throughout the empire; it then jumped the empire’s boundaries and reached Ireland. Here it became Christianity of a special sort because it operated in a society that was not Roman. When the empire in the west was invaded, the Irish were safe; they then re-Christianised England and sent missionaries to Europe as well. The English came to look down on the Irish as ‘Bog Irish’; the Irish know themselves to be the saviours of Christendom.

下一次大规模入侵是伊斯兰入侵。它发生在七、八世纪，紧随德国入侵之后的两个世纪。伊斯兰教的创始人是穆罕默德，一位阿拉伯商人，他曾得到神的启示。他受神启创立的宗教是犹太教和基督教的一个分支。伊斯兰教承认耶稣和在他之前的犹太先知是真正的先知，但声称穆罕默德是最后一位先知，是真主安拉（独一真神）的真正向导。伊斯兰教比基督教简单得多；它不像基督教那样，拥有希腊人赋予的三位一体的神——圣父、圣子、圣灵——既分离又平等，既分离又合一。在伊斯兰教中，真主是独一的安拉。穆斯林对基督徒和犹太人相当宽容。而基督徒则视穆斯林为欺骗者和真正信仰的破坏者。

The next great invasion was Islamic. It occurred in the seventh and eighth centuries, the two centuries immediately after the German invasions. The founder of the Islamic religion was Muhammad, a merchant in Arabia who received visions from God. The religion he developed by divine prompting is an offshoot of Judaism and Christianity. Islam accepts Jesus and the Jewish prophets before him as true prophets but claims Muhammad is the last of the prophets, the true guide to Allah, the one God. Islam is a much simpler religion than Christianity; it lacks the Greek cleverness that gave Christianity a three-person god—Father, Son, Holy Ghost—separate but equal, separate but one. In Islam, God is the single Allah. Muslims were quite tolerant of Christians and Jews. Christians, on the other hand, regarded Muslims as deceivers and destroyers of the true faith.

穆罕默德通过征服阿拉伯半岛的异教部落并迫使他们臣服，从而使阿拉伯世界接受了他的新信仰。在他的一生中，他更是一位……穆罕默德的影响力甚至超过了耶稣：他创立了一种宗教，并将其传播到广袤的领土。耶稣去世时，基督教还未出现。穆罕默德去世后，他的追随者继续征服，并取得了更大的成功。他们很快不仅征服了各个部落，还建立了国家，包括波斯帝国，以及后来东罗马帝国在中东和北非的大片领土。他们继续沿北非向西扩张，征服了日耳曼入侵者建立的国家，然后进入西班牙。西班牙曾是罗马的一个行省，后来被西哥特人入侵并皈依基督教，如今又变成了伊斯兰教的领地。征服在此止步。一支穆斯林军队深入法国腹地，但在图尔战役中被法兰克人的领袖、查理曼大帝的祖父查理·马特击败。法兰克人拯救了欧洲，使其免于基督教的荼毒。

Muhammad won over Arabia for his new faith by conquering its pagan tribes and forcing them to submit. In his life he was a more influential figure than Jesus: he founded a religion and established it in a wide territory. At the time of Jesus’ death, there was nothing of Christianity. After Muhammad’s death, his followers continued the conquests with even greater success. In short order they conquered not only tribes but established states, the Persian Empire and then a good deal of the Eastern Roman Empire in the Middle East and North Africa. They continued westwards along North Africa, now conquering states that had been established by German invaders, and then crossed into Spain. This had been a Roman province, then was invaded by the Visigoths who became Christian, and now it was Islamic. Here the conquests stopped. A Muslim army advanced well into France but was defeated at Tours by Charles Martel, leader of the Franks and grandfather of Charlemagne. The Franks saved Europe for Christianity.

穆斯林对基督徒来说是残酷的征服者，但作为统治者却很温和。他们允许基督徒继续进行宗教活动，但作为非信徒，基督徒必须纳税；而穆斯林则无需纳税。这促使许多人皈依伊斯兰教。东罗马帝国的基督徒对穆斯林的到来抱有几分欢迎，因为他们对君士坦丁堡强加给他们的基督教版本感到不满。在穆斯林的统治下，他们可以自由地信奉自己喜欢的宗教，但基督教在这些地区逐渐消亡。随着越来越多的人皈依伊斯兰教，税收制度自然也必须改变；不久之后，所有人都开始像往常一样缴纳土地税。

The Muslims were ruthless conquerors of Christians, but gentle rulers. They allowed Christians to continue their worship, but as nonbelievers they had to pay a tax; Muslims paid no tax. This was an incentive to convert to Islam. The Christians in the Eastern Roman Empire half welcomed the Muslims because they were upset at the version of Christianity that Constantinople was insisting they follow. Under the Muslims they could practise what they liked, but gradually Christianity died out in these lands. As more and more people converted to Islam, of course, the rule about tax had to be changed; everyone soon paid a tax on land in the normal way.

在中世纪，穆斯林统治下的西班牙成为欧洲最文明的地区。不识字的阿拉伯部落在征服的旅途中，从他们征服的民族那里汲取知识：从拥有高度文明的波斯人那里，以及从拜占庭帝国的希腊人那里。阿拉伯人将希腊的学术带到西班牙，记录并加以发展，并允许北欧的学者前来抄录。在穆斯林统治下的西班牙，犹太人身居要职，他们常常担任翻译。一个人先阅读阿拉伯语文献（该文献此前已从希腊语翻译成阿拉伯语），然后将其口述成西班牙语。另一个人听完西班牙语译文后，再用拉丁语写下草稿。经过三次翻译，希腊学术以新的拉丁语版本被带回欧洲，供基督教大学学习，这些大学从十二世纪开始运作。就这样，西欧获得了亚里士多德关于逻辑学的著作以及关于医学、天文学和数学的著作——这些都是希腊人擅长的学科。

Spain under Muslim rule became, in the Middle Ages, the most civilised part of Europe. On their journeys of conquest, the illiterate Arab tribesmen had learnt from the people they conquered: from the Persians, who sustained a highly cultivated civilisation, and from the Greeks in the Byzantine Empire. The Arabs carried the Greek learning with them to Spain, recorded and elaborated on it, and allowed scholars from northern Europe to come and make copies. The Jews, who held high positions in Muslim Spain, were often the translators. One person reading the document in Arabic (into which it had been previously translated from the Greek) translated it aloud into Spanish. A second person hearing the Spanish made a written draft in Latin. In its new Latin version, Greek learning, having been through three translations, was taken back to be studied in the universities of Christian Europe, which began to operate from the twelfth century. In this way, western Europe acquired Aristotle’s writings on logic and works on medicine, astronomy and maths—the disciplines in which the Greeks were masters.

让我们总结一下三次征服的结果。首先，在西欧，日耳曼文化、古罗马文化和基督教文化融合在一起。其次，在英格兰，日耳曼文化完全占领，然后重新皈依基督教。第三，在穆斯林世界——中东，北非和西班牙——基督教消亡了，但希腊的学术思想被保存下来并传播到基督教欧洲。

Let us summarise the outcome of three conquests. First, in western Europe a melding of German and old Roman and Christian. Second, in England a complete German takeover and then a reconversion to Christianity. Third, in the Muslim world—in the Middle East, North Africa and Spain—Christianity died out but Greek learning was preserved and transmitted to Christian Europe.

维京人或挪威人是最后一批入侵者，他们在九世纪和十世纪横扫欧洲，这两个世纪紧随穆斯林的扩张之后。他们的家园位于北方——瑞典、挪威和丹麦——他们通过海路而来。他们巨大的长船令人望而生畏。这些船吃水很浅——船底只需大约一米深的水——因此可以沿河而上很远。如果河水变得很浅，他们会放下随身携带的小船继续前进。如果遇到障碍物，他们会扛着船绕过去，继续划桨。他们深入内陆；在俄罗斯，他们从波罗的海一直航行到黑海。

THE VIKINGS OR NORSEMEN were the last of the invaders, marauding through Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries, the two centuries immediately following the Muslim advance. Their homes were in the north—Sweden, Norway and Denmark—and they came by sea. Their great longboats were a terrifying sight. They had a very shallow draught—they needed only about a metre of water under them—so they could sail a long way up the rivers. If the river got very shallow, they would launch small boats, which they carried with them, and continue. If they met some sort of barrier, they carried their boat around it and kept rowing. They penetrated far inland; in Russia they travelled from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

他们的敞篷船只能在夏季出海。起初，他们只在夏季来此，之后便返回家乡。他们的目的是掠夺：珍贵的物品，可以带回家的东西。但在寻找珍贵物品的同时，他们也为了生存而劫掠，抢夺食物、马匹、妇女，掠夺远超所需之物。他们是铁杆的恐怖分子。他们不仅进行袭击和抢劫，而且进行大规模的掠夺，焚烧和洗劫；甚至他们把带不走的东西都毁掉了。他们的目的是制造恐慌。人们在他们面前四散奔逃，他们残忍无情。在他们的一部史诗中，有一位战士被称为“儿童之人”，因为他拒绝用长矛刺穿儿童。

Their open boats could sail on the ocean only in summer. At first they came for the summer and then returned home. Their aim was plunder: precious objects, things they could carry back with them. But while they were looking for precious objects, they plundered to survive, seizing food, horses, women and taking more than they needed. They were determined terrorists. Not just raiding and robbing but plundering on a large scale, burning and looting; even things they could not carry away with them they destroyed. Their aim was to create total panic. People fled before them and they were merciless. In one of their sagas there was a warrior referred to as the children’s man because he refused to impale children on the point of his lance.

德国人是从陆路来的。似乎最安全的地方是河流中的岛屿或近海。这些地方建有修道院，如今却很容易被这些海上劫掠者洗劫一空。修道院之所以如此吸引人，是因为它们藏有金银制成的珍贵物品和大量的食物，因为它们就像一个小型农场，种植并储存足够一两百名修士食用的粮食。在法国卢瓦尔河口的一个近海岛屿上，有一座修道院。每年夏天，修士们都会沿着河流向内陆迁移，但维京人驾驶着长船追赶他们。修道院沿着卢瓦尔河向上游迁移了四五次，最终定居在了如今的瑞士境内，修士们带着他们的金十字架、一块真十字架碎片和一块基督腿骨。

The Germans had come by land. The safest place from marauders seemed to be islands in rivers or offshore. Monasteries had been built in these places and now they were easily plundered by these sea-going raiders. Monasteries were highly attractive because they held precious objects made of gold and silver and great quantities of food, for they were a sort of agribusiness, growing and storing enough food for one or two hundred monks. At the mouth of the River Loire in France was a monastery on an offshore island. Every summer the monks would move further inland up the river, but the Vikings chased them in their longboats. The monastery moved about four or five times up the Loire and finally came to rest in what is now Switzerland, with the monks carrying their crosses of gold and their piece of the True Cross and portion of Christ’s leg.

北欧人之所以能横行无阻，是因为当时的政府软弱无力；他们没有完善的税收制度，虽然能够组建军队，但这些入侵者并非经由陆路而来。西欧这些小王国都没有海军。查理曼大帝从未拥有过海军，而且他的帝国最终也已不复存在。罗马帝国曾利用海洋——地中海维系着它的统一——但如今，地中海的大部分海域都落入了穆斯林之手。欧洲各国的海上贸易寥寥无几，航海技术也已失传；欧洲变得封闭——因此极易受到机动性极强的入侵者的攻击。

The Norsemen could range so widely without opposition because governments were weak; they had no regular system of tax, and while they could put an army together, these invaders did not come by land. None of these little western European kingdoms had a navy. Charlemagne never had a navy and his empire, in any case, was gone. The Roman Empire had used the sea—the Mediterranean Sea held it together—but now a large part of that sea was in Muslim hands. In the states of Europe there was little trade carried by sea and the art of sailing was lost; Europe was turned inwards—and hence was vulnerable to a highly mobile invading force.

一段时间后，北欧人带着妻儿定居下来。地图显示了他们在俄罗斯、法国北部、英格兰和爱尔兰的定居点。都柏林最初就是一座北欧城市。英格兰遭受了两次入侵：先是盎格鲁人、撒克逊人和朱特人，然后是北欧人从岛屿东部入侵。这两批入侵者都讲日耳曼语，英语就源于此。法国北部的定居点诺曼底（Normandy）的名字就来源于那里的北欧居民。法国国王允许他们定居，条件是他们停止劫掠。

After a time the Norsemen brought their wives and children and settled permanently. The map shows their settlements, in Russia, northern France, England and Ireland. Dublin was originally a Norse city. England had a double dose of invasions: first the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, and then the Norsemen on the eastern side of the island. Both groups of invaders spoke Germanic languages, from which English derives. The settlement in northern France took its name, Normandy, from its Norse inhabitants. The French king let them settle there on condition that they stopped their raiding.

诺曼人在法国北部定居约一百年后，诺曼公爵威廉及其少数追随者于1066年征服了英格兰。这实际上是一场自上而下的权力更迭；威廉公爵及其追随者确立了自己在英格兰的统治地位。诺曼人讲一种独特的法语，这种法语后来融入了英语的形成之中。英格兰曾是一个饱受侵略者蹂躏的社会，但自1066年之后，这个国家再也没有遭受过入侵。

About 100 years after the Normans had settled in northern France, the Norman Duke William with a few of his followers conquered England in the year 1066. This was just a takeover from the top; Duke William and his followers installed themselves as the new ruling class in England. The Normans spoke their own form of French, which then became part of the mix that formed English. England was a society of invaders, but after 1066 the country has not been invaded again.

十世纪之后，对欧洲的入侵停止了。诺曼人被说服定居下来，传教士前往挪威和瑞典，使这些国家皈依基督教。贸易复苏，城镇扩张。欧洲社会如今稳定而强大，足以派遣自己的探险队。

After the tenth century, the incursions into Europe stopped. The Normans were persuaded to settle and missionaries went to Norway and Sweden and converted those countries to Christianity. Trade revived and towns expanded. European society was now stable and strong enough to send out its own expeditions.

基督教世界面临的首要任务是击退穆斯林。这是一场遍及欧洲的战役，其最初目标是收复西班牙，随后夺回圣地巴勒斯坦。收复西班牙的战役始于十一世纪。这项工程历时四百余年才完成。它分阶段进行：基督徒从北方进军，占领了大片领土，重建了基督教社会，然后再次南下。1492年，最后一批穆斯林被逐出西班牙南部，同年，在西班牙君主的赞助下，哥伦布向西航行。

The first task Christendom undertook was to drive back the Muslims. These were European-wide campaigns directed first to the re-conquest of Spain and then to recapturing the Holy Land of Palestine. The reconquest of Spain began in the eleventh century and took over 400 years to complete. It proceeded in instalments; coming from the north the Christians seized a wide swathe of territory, re-established a Christian society, and then pushed south again. The last Muslims were driven from southern Spain in 1492, the same year that Columbus, under the patronage of Spanish monarchs, sailed westwards.

十字军东征始于1095年，持续了近两个世纪。试想，对于基督徒而言，得知基督受难之地、他传道之地竟落入他们视为异教徒和宗教死敌之人手中，该是何等的悲痛。上帝必定希望他们铲除这亵渎神明之物。教皇鼓励并批准了这些十字军东征。然而，只有第一次东征取得了一定的成功。耶路撒冷曾短暂地被基督夺回，一些十字军战士甚至在那里建立了永久定居点。但随后穆斯林将他们驱逐，此后所有的十字军东征都以失败告终。

The crusades to the Holy Land began in 1095 and went on for almost two centuries. Imagine what it meant to Christians to know that the place where Christ died, the country where he taught, was in the hands of people whom they regarded as infidels and the active enemies of their religion. God must want them to remove this blasphemy. The pope encouraged and sanctioned the crusades. But only the first of these had any measure of success. Jerusalem was briefly regained for Christ and some of the crusaders made permanent settlements. Then the Muslims drove them out and all the subsequent crusades failed.

十字军东征是合作行动。相比之下，从十五世纪开始向美洲和亚洲的海外扩张则是新兴民族国家之间的竞争：先是西班牙和葡萄牙，然后是英国、法国和荷兰。首要目标是获取亚洲的香料和其他财富。当时有两条路线：绕道南非，或横渡大西洋向西。哥伦布发现美洲时，原本打算前往中国。西班牙王室资助他，并因此获得了中美洲和南美洲的金银资源，这足以弥补他未能抵达中国的遗憾。葡萄牙人是第一个抵达亚洲的国家；但他们很快就被争夺印度控制权的法国人和英国人以及夺取东印度群岛（今印度尼西亚）控制权的荷兰人所取代。

Crusades were co-operative efforts. By contrast, the expansion overseas to America and Asia from the fifteenth century was a competition between emerging nation-states: first Spain and Portugal, then Britain, France and Holland. The first aim was to reach the spices and other riches of Asia. There were two routes: by sea around southern Africa, or westward across the Atlantic. When he came across America, Columbus was intending to reach China. It was more than ample compensation for this disappointment that the Spanish monarchy, which had sponsored him, gained access to the gold and silver of Central and South America. The Portuguese were the first to arrive in Asia; they were pushed aside by the French and English, who contested for the control of India, and by the Dutch, who wrested control of the East Indies (now Indonesia).

来自亚洲的奢侈品早已流入欧洲，但它们是从东方经由拜占庭帝国的首都君士坦丁堡运抵欧洲的。欧洲人转向海洋运输，部分原因是通往东方的航线落入了穆斯林手中。

Luxury goods from Asia had long been reaching Europe, but they came from the east through the great capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople. Europeans took to the oceans partly because the route to the east had fallen into Muslim hands.

这更像是一次真正的“衰落”。东罗马帝国之所以能在五世纪幸存下来，是因为日耳曼人将攻击重点放在了西部。东罗马帝国或许也拥有更强大的……经济和行政方面都取得了成功。然而，拜占庭帝国的领土却开始不断流失。七、八世纪，来自阿拉伯的穆斯林入侵者夺走了其大部分领土。九世纪，土耳其人从亚洲草原出发，一路向南向西，最终皈依伊斯兰教，并在中东地区建立统治，从拜占庭手中夺取了如今的土耳其领土。他们越过边境进入欧洲，最终控制了君士坦丁堡四周的领土。 1453年，他们攻陷了君士坦丁堡。拜占庭帝国的末代皇帝在与军队的战斗中阵亡。

This was more truly a ‘fall’. The Eastern Roman Empire had survived in the fifth century because the Germans had concentrated their attack on the west. The eastern empire may have also had a stronger economy and administration. However, it steadily began losing territory. A great slice went to the Muslim invaders coming out of Arabia in the seventh and eighth centuries. Then in the ninth century, the Turks rode out of the Asian steppes; they converted to Islam on their way south and west, and established their rule through the Middle East, seizing what is modern Turkey from the Byzantines. They crossed into Europe and finally held territory on all sides of Constantinople. They captured the city itself in 1453. The last Byzantine emperor died fighting with his troops.

于是，罗马帝国走向终结，疆域缩小到只剩一小块，希腊文化的影响也远大于罗马文化。由查士丁尼大帝于六世纪建造的宏伟的圣索菲亚大教堂（意为“圣智”）被改建为清真寺。土耳其人自己也建立了一个帝国——奥斯曼帝国。第一次世界大战后，奥斯曼帝国灭亡，现代土耳其作为一个世俗国家建立，尽管其大部分人口信奉伊斯兰教。那座最初作为教堂建造的​​宏伟清真寺则被改建为博物馆。

And so the Roman Empire, reduced to a patch of territory and more Greek than Roman, came to an end. The great cathedral of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), built by Emperor Justinian in the sixth century, was converted into a mosque. The Turks themselves ran an empire, the Ottoman Empire. When it came to an end after World War I, modern Turkey was established as a secular state, though most of its people are Muslim. The great mosque that had been built as a church was turned into a museum.

随着君士坦丁堡的陷落，那些保存并研究古希腊学术的基督教学者带着他们的手稿逃往意大利。他们受到了热烈欢迎，因为文艺复兴时期的学者们正竞相搜寻古代手稿。早在1453年之前，意大利的学者就已与君士坦丁堡的学者取得联系，以便接触希腊的学术和文学。拉丁学术和文学在西方一直得以保存。欧洲。一些希腊学术成果以拉丁文形式保存了下来，虽然整个罗马文学都受到了希腊的影响，但希腊原文是在很长一段时间之后才从遥远的地方传入的——中世纪从西班牙，十五世纪从君士坦丁堡。

With the fall of Constantinople, Christian scholars who had preserved and studied the learning of classical Greece took themselves and their manuscripts to Italy. They were very readily received because in the Renaissance scholars were hunting for ancient manuscripts. Even before 1453, scholars in Italy had made contact with scholars in Constantinople to gain access to Greek learning and literature. Latin learning and literature had been preserved continuously in western Europe. Some Greek learning was preserved in Latin and although the whole of Roman literature had been influenced by the Greeks, the Greek originals only arrived after a long interval and from the extremities—from Spain in the Middle Ages and from Constantinople in the fifteenth century.

T古希腊人发明了民主国家。他们也发明了政治，这个词源于他们用来指代城邦的词“ polis” 。虽然历史上早已存在各种形式的政府，但希腊人发明了一种由全体公民参与讨论并由多数人投票决定的政府形式。他们的制度是直接民主，所有公民聚集在一起辩论并制定政策。并非所有希腊城邦都是民主政体，而且民主政体也总是摇摇欲坠。在所有小型民主城邦中，我们对雅典的了解最多，雅典的民主制度在断断续续的情况下延续了170年。在此期间，所有在雅典出生的男性都有权参与政府事务，但女性和奴隶没有这项权利。

THE ANCIENT GREEKS INVENTED THE democratic state. They also invented politics, a word which comes from their word for city, polis. There had long been governments of various sorts; the Greeks invented government by discussion among all citizens and majority voting. Theirs was direct democracy in which all citizens gathered in one place to debate and determine policy. Not all the Greek city-states were democracies, and democracies were always precarious. Of all the little democratic states, we know most about Athens, where democracy survived with some interruptions for 170 years. During this time, all the men born in Athens had the right to participate in government, but not women or slaves.

我们称我们的制度为民主，但它与雅典民主截然不同；我们实行的是代议制民主。我们并不经常参与政府运作。我们大约每四年投票一次；我们有机会表达不满、举行示威游行和提交意见，但我们并非对提交议会的每个议题都拥有直接投票权。

We call our system democracy but it is very different from Athenian democracy; ours is representative democracy. We are not regularly involved in the process of government. We vote every four years or so; we have the opportunity to complain and stage demonstrations and make submissions, but we do not directly vote on every issue that comes before the parliament.

如果人民直接掌控我们的民主制度，我们知道它将与现有的制度截然不同。当然，不可能所有人都聚集在一起，但如果每个问题都通过网络进行全民公投，我们就可以复制希腊的制度。根据民意调查，在这种制度下，澳大利亚绝不会制定从英国以外的国家引进移民的政策；肯定不会有亚洲移民；我们几乎肯定会绞死罪犯，甚至可能还会鞭打他们；海外援助可能根本不会存在；单身母亲将难以保住养老金；学生也可能难以保住福利。因此，你或许会认为，阻止民众的无知和偏见肆意蔓延是一件好事。

If the people were directly in charge of our democracy, we know it would be a very different system from what we have. Of course not all the people could gather in one place but we could reproduce the Greek system if, on every issue, there was a referendum conducted on the internet. With such a system we know from the public-opinion polls that Australia would never have had a policy to bring migrants from countries other than Britain; there would definitely be no Asian migrants; we would almost certainly be hanging criminals and we might be flogging them as well; overseas aid would probably not exist; single mothers would struggle to keep their pension; students would probably struggle to keep their benefits. So you might think it is as well that the ignorance and the prejudice of the people do not have free rein.

如果你认同这种观点，那么你现在就接近了苏格拉底、柏拉图和亚里士多德——这三位伟大的雅典哲学家——的观点。他们对雅典民主制度抱有严重的怀疑，而他们的批评有助于我们理解其运作方式。他们抱怨说，人民反复无常、优柔寡断、愚昧无知、容易被左右。治国理政是一门精妙的艺术，需要智慧和判断力，而并非所有公民都具备这些品质。哲学家们会更乐于见到我们如今的代议制民主制度。无论我们如何评价我们的代表，他们通常都比普通民众受过更好的教育，也更了解情况。我们的政治家受到一个由众多优秀人才组成的公务员队伍的指导。因此，人民并非直接统治，而是通过那些受过专业训练、对政府运作有着深刻思考的人员来参与决策。但是，苏格拉底、柏拉图和亚里士多德不会称我们的制度为民主。

If you have come to that position you are now close to the view of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, the great Athenian philosophers, who had severe doubts about Athenian democracy and whose criticisms help us to understand how it operated. They complained that the people were fickle; they were indecisive; they were ignorant; they were easily swayed. Government is a fine art that requires wisdom and judgment, which are not the possession of all citizens. The philosophers would be much happier with our system of representative democracy. No matter what we say about our representatives, they are usually better educated and better informed than the people as a whole. Our politicians are guided by a civil service in which there are very able people. So the people do not rule directly and there is an input from those who are trained and reflective about the whole business of government. But Socrates, Plato and Aristotle would not call our system democracy.

希腊民主的起源在于军队。当我们考察不同的政府形式时，会发现军事力量的性质与国家的性质之间存在着联系。在雅典，没有正规的全职军队，也没有所谓的“常备军”——即驻扎在兵营中随时可以征召作战的军队。在雅典，所有士兵都是兼职的，但他们都接受过严格的训练，能够以紧密的队形进行步战。一旦宣战，公民们便放下他们平常的经商或务农工作，组成军队。民主公民大会的雏形是公民士兵聚集在一起，从他们的领袖那里领取作战命令。关于战争或和平以及战术的决定，早已由部落的长老议会——贵族——做出。这些决定随后被呈递给全体士兵。其目的是让士兵们了解情况，鼓舞士气。士兵大会的目的并非辩论或提出任何不同的方案；他们的目的是高呼赞许，并唱起战歌。

The origins of Greek democracy lay in the army. As we examine the different forms of government we will notice a connection between the nature of military power and the nature of the state. In Athens there was no regular full-time army, no ‘standing army’ as the term is—an army in barracks that can be called on to fight at any time. In Athens, all the soldiers were part-time, but rigorously trained to fight on foot in close formation. When war was declared, citizens left their normal business as tradespeople or farmers and constituted the army. The democratic assembly began its life as citizen-soldiers gathered together to get their marching orders from their leaders. The decisions about war or peace and tactics had already been made by the council of elders, the nobility of the tribe. They were then laid before the mass of the soldiers. The aim was to put them in the picture, to psych them up. The assembly of soldiers was not to debate the matter or to propose anything different; they were meant to shout their approval and sing their battle songs.

议会逐渐获得更多权力，最终完成 控制。我们并不完全清楚这种控制是如何形成的，但由于国家依赖于公民士兵的参与，而战争又是频繁发生的，士兵们便占据了强大的地位。因此，民主最初源于战士们的团结。但它也带有部落性质。雅典最初有四个部落，他们各自作为独立的部落联合作战。部落选举政府官员，即使雅典后来发展成为更正式的民主政体并划分了选区，你仍然终身属于同一个选区，即便你迁居他处。因此，仅仅依靠地理位置似乎不足以维系这种关系；你与那些和你一起投票的人之间有着终生的联系。

Gradually the assembly gained more power and eventually complete control. We don’t know fully how this came about but since the state relied on the participation of its citizen-soldiers and since wars were very regular events, the soldiers were in a strong position. So the democracy began as a solidarity of fighting men. But it was also tribal. There were initially four tribes in Athens and they used to come together to fight as separate tribes. Tribes elected the offices of government and even when Athens became a more formal democracy and drew up electorates, you remained in your electorate for life, even if you moved to live somewhere else. So geography alone never seemed a strong enough bond; you had a lifelong tie with those you voted with.

直接民主需要人民的坚定承诺和对人民的极大信任。雅典民主的理想由雅典领袖伯里克利在为在与斯巴达战争中阵亡的士兵举行的葬礼上发表的演说中阐述。这篇“葬礼演说”被雅典作家修昔底德记录在《 伯罗奔尼撒战争史》中。修昔底德是第一位力求客观公正的历史学家。他的这部历史著作以手稿形式保存在君士坦丁堡。在文艺复兴时期，也就是成书1800年后，它传入意大利，并被翻译成拉丁文，之后又被翻译成其他现代欧洲语言。继林肯的葛底斯堡演说之后，这是政治家在墓地发表的最著名的演讲。伯里克利的演说比林肯的要长得多。以下仅为节选：

DIRECT DEMOCRACY REQUIRED a great commitment from the people and a great faith in the people. The ideals of Athenian democracy were set forth by Pericles, the leader of Athens, in a speech he gave at the burial of soldiers killed in a war against Sparta. This ‘funeral oration’ is recorded in The Peloponnesian War by the Athenian author Thucydides, the first historian who attempted to be objective and fair-minded. Thucydides’ history was preserved in manuscript at Constantinople. In the Renaissance, 1800 years after it was written, it reached Italy and was translated into Latin and then into modern European languages. After Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, it is the most famous speech of a politician at a cemetery. Pericles’ speech was much longer than Lincoln’s. These are only extracts:

一个开放、文明的社会，拥有积极参与的公民：这对于任何关心民主的人来说都是一个极具吸引力的理想，即便我们知道雅典的休闲和美好建立在奴隶制之上，有时公民甚至需要被驱赶到公民大会。然而，伯里克利演讲的积极影响却迟迟未能显现。几个世纪以来，欧洲精英不仅出于自身利益，也受过良好的教育，对民主抱有戒心，因为他们所阅读的大多数古典作家都对民主持敌对态度。以至于在十九世纪初，一位名叫乔治·格罗特的英国学者兼激进分子发表了一部关于希腊的新研究，论证民主与高雅文化密不可分，二者不可分割。这便是他对英国民主事业的贡献。

An open, cultivated society with committed, engaged citizens: this is an attractive ideal now to anyone who cares about democracy, even though we know that Athenian leisure and beauty rested on slavery and that sometimes citizens had to be herded into the assembly. However, the positive influence of Pericles’ speech was long delayed. For centuries, the elite of Europe had not only their interests but also their education to warn them against democracy, since most of the classical authors they read were hostile to it. So much so that in the early nineteenth century an English scholar and radical, George Grote, produced a new study of Greece to argue that the democracy and the high culture were inter-connected and you could not damn the one and accept the other. This was his contribution to the cause of democracy in England.

即使对我们而言，希腊民主的某些方面也与我们的理想相悖。它非常注重社群性，甚至带有一些强制性；个人权利意识薄弱。雅典公民的特权在于归属感——正如伯里克利所说，如果你对政治不感兴趣，你就不配待在这里。我们对个人权利的关注则源于其他方面。

Even to us there are some aspects of Greek democracy that are at odds with our ideals. It was very communal and a touch coercive; there was little sense of individual rights. The privilege of an Athenian citizen was to belong—as Pericles said, if you are not interested in politics you have no business here. Our concern with individual rights has other origins.

公元前四世纪初，马其顿统治者亚历山大大帝征服了雅典和其他希腊小城邦，使它们失去了独立。民主制度虽然消亡，但曾在雅典蓬勃发展的希腊文化却得以延续。它随着亚历山大帝国的扩张而传播，其疆域遍及东地中海和中东地区。亚历山大所创造的……希腊世界被罗马征服后，仍然保持着这种状态，成为罗马帝国东部讲希腊语的一半领土。

Athens and all the other little Greek states lost their independence when Alexander the Great, the ruler of Macedonia in northern Greece, took them over early in the fourth century BC. Democracy was lost, but not the Greek culture that had flourished in Athens. It spread with Alexander’s empire, which extended throughout the eastern Mediterranean and into the Middle East. What Alexander had made into a Greek world remained so when it was conquered by Rome and became the eastern, Greek-speaking half of its empire.

罗马开始扩张时，它虽是共和国，却并非民主政体。罗马设有民众大会，其起源与希腊城邦类似，最初也是由一群武装人员组成。罗马的每个公民都必须参战，并且必须自备装备和武器。公民的贡献取决于其财富。富裕者可以自备马匹加入骑兵，骑兵在罗马军队中规模较小。其余公民均为步兵，但步兵的等级各不相同：一级步兵装备齐全，配备剑、锁子甲和盾牌；二级步兵的装备较为简陋；三级步兵仅配备长矛或标枪；而最底层的步兵——最贫穷的民众——只能负担得起投石索，也就是一块布或皮革，用来投掷石块。

When Rome began its expansion, it was a republic but not a democracy. There were popular assemblies which began, like those in the Greek states, as a group of armed men. Every citizen in Rome had to fight and he had to supply his own equipment and weapons. You contributed according to your wealth. If you were rich, you supplied a horse and joined the cavalry, which was a fairly small section of the Roman army. All the rest were foot soldiers but of different grades: the first came fully armed with a sword, a coat of mail and a shield; the next had less armour; the third had only a spear or a javelin; and the last class of infantry—the poorest people—could afford only a sling, a bit of cloth or leather with which you could hurl a stone.

早期，议会就像阅兵场上的军队。人们按等级列队：骑兵、一级步兵、二等、三等、四等士兵，甚至包括手持投石索的平民。投票以小组为单位进行。因此，所有骑兵通过内部讨论决定他们的立场；所有一级步兵决定他们的立场，以此类推。每个小组都表达了共同的意见，但他们的投票权并不均等。总共有193张选票，根据各小组的地位分配。骑兵和一级步兵共拥有98张选票（总共193张），占多数，尽管大部分士兵都属于地位较低的小组。如果前两个小组达成一致，就无需询问其他小组的意见，而且通常也不会询问；骑兵和一级步兵已经解决了这个问题。所有人都至少有可能参与，但富人拥有主导权。

In the early years the assembly was like an army on a parade ground. Men were drawn up in their different ranks: cavalry, first-class foot soldiers, second, third, fourth, down to the people with slings. The voting took place by groups. So all the cavalry decided their view of the matter by internal discussion; all the first-class infantry decided their view of the matter and so on. Each group expressed a joint opinion but their voting power was not equal. There were 193 votes overall and these were allocated to the groups according to their status. The cavalry and the first-class infantrymen together had 98 votes out of a possible 193 votes, which is a majority, though the bulk of the soldiers were in the lesser groups. If these first two groups agreed, there was no need even to ask the others and often they were not asked; the horsemen and the first-class soldiers had settled the matter. All men potentially at least participated, but the rich had the predominant voice.

这个大会选举罗马执政官，他们是共和国的首相；执政官有两个，只有他们达成一致意见才能行事。两位执政官相互制约，而且他们的权力还受到限制，因为他们的任期只有一年。罗马人以历任执政官的姓名来划分年份。

This assembly elected the Roman consuls, who were the prime ministers of the republic; there were two of them and they could act only if they agreed. The two consuls controlled each other and their power was further limited by holding office for only one year. Romans identified the years by the persons who had been consuls.

逐渐地，平民百姓开始争取更多权力，以对抗富人和贵族。我们知道这是如何发生的——他们利用军事力量实现了这一目标。战争将会……他们宣布拒绝参战，三、四、五级普通士兵也拒绝参战。他们说，除非赋予他们更大的国家权力，否则他们不会参战。他们以此威胁，迫使政府成立了新的议会，并任命了被称为保民官的官员。如果普通民众受到不公正待遇，保民官有权在政府运作的任何阶段进行干预。在再次拒绝参战后，这个议会被赋予了强大的立法权。

Gradually the common people claimed more power for themselves as against the wealthy and the nobles. We do know how this happened—they used their military power to get it. A war would be declared and the common soldiers, ranks three, four and five, refused to fight. They said we will fight only if you give us more power in the state. They used that threat to obtain a new assembly, one which appointed officers called tribunes. Tribunes had power to intervene at any stage in the governmental process if an ordinary person was getting a raw deal. After another refusal to fight, this assembly was given a strong role in law-making.

有时这些行动被称为罢工，但这个词并不恰当。罢工一词暗示着这一过程发生在劳资关系领域，仿佛罗马的劳动人民正在组织工会，并号召罢工反对他们的老板。事实并非如此。普通民众发动了一场起义。他们的机会并非来自劳资关系，而是来自国际关系。

Sometimes these actions are referred to as strikes, which is a poor word for them. Strikes suggest that this process was taking place in the sphere of industrial relations, that working people were being unionised in Rome and were calling strikes against their bosses. It was not like that at all. The common people staged a mutiny. Their opportunity came not out of industrial relations but international relations.

与雅典一样，罗马公民士兵的权力也在不断扩大，但罗马的民主制度从未完全实现。罗马的最高权力机构仍然是元老院，其成员最初来自贵族家庭，后来更多地来自富裕家庭。民众大会虽然权力日益增长，限制了元老院的权力，但并未凌驾于其之上，也未能取而代之。罗马宪法的变革是通过新机构的建立和权力关系的转变实现的，而非革命和彻底的变革。英国宪法也沿袭了这一模式，但至今仍未形成完整的成文宪法。罗马宪法注重权力的分散和制衡，因此成为美国宪法的重要典范。

As in Athens, citizen-soldiers increased their power, except that in Rome democracy never fully triumphed. The chief body in Rome remained the Senate, which was composed of members from noble families and later more from wealthy families. The popular assemblies with their increased power put limits on the Senate but did not overawe or supplant it. The Roman constitution changed by the creation of new institutions and shifts in the relations of power, not by revolution and a fresh start. In this it was followed by the British constitution, which has still not been written down in one document. In its concern to have power dispersed and checked, the Roman constitution was an important model for that of the United States.

罗马最初由国王统治。共和国直到公元前500年左右才建立，当时罗马人推翻了暴君塔克文一世（傲慢的塔克文 ）。罗马历史学家李维记载了这场起义。他的著作在罗马帝国灭亡后保存于西欧，但部分内容已遗失；仅存一份副本，直到十六世纪才被发现，因此文艺复兴时期的学者对此一无所知。而关于共和国建立的那部分内容则为人所知。莎士比亚在其诗作《鲁克丽丝受辱记》中就借鉴了这一部分。

THE ROMANS HAD FIRST BEEN RULED by kings. The republic was only established in about 500 BC when the Romans overthrew the tyrant king, Tarquin the Proud. The Roman historian Livy gives an account of this revolt. His work was preserved in western Europe after the fall of Rome but some of it had disappeared; only a single copy of one section survived and was not discovered until the sixteenth century, so it remained unknown to Renaissance scholars. The section dealing with the establishment of the republic was known. Shakespeare drew on it for his poem ‘The Rape of Lucrece’.

正是这起强奸案点燃了共和时期的叛乱。强奸犯并非塔克文本人，而是他的儿子塞克斯图斯·塔克文。受害者是科拉提努斯的妻子卢克丽霞。推翻国王的叛乱领袖是布鲁图斯，他是国王的侄子。四百年后，他的同名者策划了刺杀尤利乌斯·凯撒的阴谋。老布鲁图斯亲眼目睹了许多家人被傲慢的塔克文杀害。为了活命，布鲁图斯假装愚钝，否则塔克文也会除掉他。布鲁图斯名副其实，他的名字在拉丁语中意为“愚钝”。当塔克文没收他的所有财产时，他没有抱怨。他一直在等待时机，而卢克丽霞被强奸的事件正是他的机会。以上是李维的记载。故事始于国王的儿子们远赴阿尔代亚参战之时。科拉提努斯正在他们的帐篷里和他们喝酒，他们开始谈论各自的妻子，每个人都吹嘘自己的妻子是最好的。科拉提努斯提议他们骑马回罗马看看各自的妻子在做什么，以此来解决这个问题。结果发现王子们的妻子们都在寻欢作乐，而卢克丽霞却在辛勤地纺纱。科拉提努斯赢得了这场争论。几天后，塞克斯图斯瞒着科拉提努斯再次拜访了卢克丽霞。

It was a rape that sparked the republican revolt. The rapist was not Tarquin himself but his son, Sextus Tarquinius. His victim was Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus. The leader of the revolt that expelled the king was Brutus, who was a nephew of the king. His namesake 400 years later led the plot to assassinate Julius Caesar. The first Brutus had seen many of his family killed by Tarquin the Proud. To survive, Brutus had pretended to be a sort of half-wit, otherwise Tarquin would have done away with him as well. Brutus was being true to his name, which in Latin means ‘dull-witted’. He made no complaint when Tarquin seized all his property. He was biding his time and his opportunity came with the rape of Lucretia. This is the story as Livy tells it. It begins when the sons of the king are away from Rome at Ardea fighting a war. Collatinus was drinking with them in their tent when they started to talk about their wives, with each boasting that his wife was the best. Collatinus suggested that they settle the matter by riding back to Rome to check on what their wives were doing. The wives of the princes were found partying, but Lucretia was hard at work, spinning. Collatinus had won the argument. A few days later, Sextus, without Collatinus’s knowledge, returned to visit Lucretia.

布鲁图斯信守诺言。因此，共和国的建立源于一位王子犯下的滔天罪行；源于一位女性，就像一位善良的女性罗马人视她的荣誉高于生命；而且，因为有一个人决心为她复仇。但并非所有罗马人都希望塔克文退位，有人密谋拥立他复辟。阴谋败露时，布鲁图斯是首批两位执政官之一，执政官取代了国王。布鲁图斯当时正坐在公众集会上，也就是审判席上，阴谋者的名字被呈到他面前。名单上赫然列着他的两个儿子。布鲁图斯的职责是对他们进行判决。人群中有人高喊，他们不希望他的家族蒙受如此耻辱；他可以赦免他的儿子们。但布鲁图斯断然拒绝；他坚持同样的原则，他的儿子们和其他人一样，都将受到同样的惩罚。于是，在布鲁图斯的注视下，他的儿子们被剥光衣服，鞭打，然后被斩首。他面无表情。这就是他对共和国的忠诚。

Brutus was true to his word. So the republic was launched because of an outrageous crime by a prince; because a woman, like a good Roman, valued her honour more highly than her life; and because one man was determined to avenge her. But not everyone in Rome wanted Tarquin off the throne and there was a conspiracy to bring the king back. When the conspiracy was uncovered, Brutus was one of the first two consuls, the office-holders who had replaced the king. Brutus was sitting in the public assembly, in the seat of judgment, when the names of the conspirators were brought before him. On the list were two of his sons. It was Brutus’s job to pass sentence of punishment on them. People in the crowd yelled out that they did not want his family to be so dishonoured; that he could pardon his sons. But Brutus would not hear of it; the same rule was going to apply to his sons as to everyone else. So while Brutus watched, his sons were stripped naked, flogged and then beheaded. He did not flinch. Such was his devotion to the republic.

罗马人当然赞扬布鲁图斯；这正是对共和国忠诚的精髓所在：抛开一切个人私事，全心全意为公共利益服务。这就是罗马人所说的“virtus”，即共和美德，若要共和国摆脱对国王的效忠，就必须具备这种美德。你或许会认为布鲁图斯毫无人性；他怎能眼睁睁地看着自己的孩子遭受如此对待？这种共和美德造就了怪物。

The Romans of course praised Brutus; this is the very essence of devotion to the republic: that you will put all personal and private ties aside and serve the public good. This is what the Romans called virtus, republican virtue, necessary if the republic was to survive without the tie of allegiance to a king. You might think that Brutus was inhuman; how could he sit there and have that done to his own children? This republican virtue created monsters.

奇怪的是，就在法国大革命前夕，人们对罗马共和政体抱有崇敬之情——而且这种崇敬并非仅限于那些想要改革君主制的人。路易十六的宫廷画家雅克-路易·大卫以李维史诗中的两个著名故事为题材进行创作。在第一幅画中，他描绘的布鲁图斯并非在审判席上谴责他的儿子们，而是在家中目睹被斩首的尸体被抬进来。这使得大卫得以将这位面无表情、冷酷无情的父亲与那些因失去亲人而痛哭流涕的女性——死者的母亲和姐妹——的柔弱形成鲜明对比。大卫对共和美德的第二幅赞颂之作是名为《荷拉斯兄弟的誓言》的画作。

Strangely, just before the revolution in France, there was a cult of admiration for republican Rome—and not just among those who wanted to reform the monarchy. The court painter to Louis XVI, Jacques-Louis David, took as his subjects two famous episodes from Livy. In the first he depicted Brutus not in the judgment seat condemning his sons, but at home when the decapitated bodies were brought in. This allowed David to contrast the unmoved, implacable father staring straight ahead with the weakness of women, the mother and sisters of the deceased, who are weeping over their loss. David’s second tribute to republican virtue was the painting called The Oath of the Horatii.

霍拉提乌斯的三个儿子霍拉提乌斯被选为罗马的勇士。当时罗马与其敌国之一决定不进行正面交锋，而是让双方各派三名勇士决斗以解决争端。大卫在他的画作中描绘了父亲让儿子们宣誓效忠罗马的场景。他们将手放在剑柄上，举起手臂行共和式敬礼，这种敬礼方式与纳粹敬礼如出一辙。当年轻人们离去时，家中的女性——士兵们的母亲和姐妹——再次展现了人性的脆弱，她们泪流满面。其中一位姐妹尤其悲伤，因为她已经与一位即将为敌方而战的 勇士订婚。

The Horatii were the three sons of Horatius who were chosen to fight as champions of Rome when Rome and one of its enemies resolved not to fight in battle but to allow their dispute to be settled by three men from each side fighting each other. David, in his painting, shows the father swearing his sons to their allegiance to Rome. They are placing their hands on their swords and raising their arms in the republican salute, which took the same form as the Nazi salute. The women—the mother and the sisters of the soldiers—again display their human weakness by weeping as the young men depart. The sister is particularly distressed because she is engaged to one of the champions who is going to fight for the other side.

这是一场惨烈而恐怖的战斗，一场生死之战，李维对此有精彩的描述。最终只有一人幸存，他是霍拉提乌斯的儿子之一，罗马因此获胜。胜利者回到家中，发现他的妹妹正在哭泣，因为她的未婚夫被她的兄弟杀死了。兄弟拔出剑，刺穿了妹妹的身体；杀死了她，因为她本应为自己和罗马的胜利而欢呼，却在此时哭泣。这再次传达了一个信息：为了国家，家庭必须被牺牲。兄弟被送上法庭，但很快就被判无罪。父亲出现在审判现场，批评了自己的女儿，从而帮助儿子重获自由。

It was a ferocious, terrifying battle, a battle to the death, wonderfully described by Livy. Only one man survives, one of the sons of Horatius, so Rome has won. The victor comes home and finds his sister crying because her fiancé is dead, killed by her brother. The brother takes out his sword and runs it through his sister; kills her, for weeping when she should have been rejoicing at his own and Rome’s success. Again the message is that family has to be sacrificed in the service of the state. The brother is put on trial but is quickly found to be not guilty. The father turns up at the trial, criticises his daughter, and so helps to free his son.

罗马共和国延续了两百多年，之后开始陷入混乱。罗马不断扩张，那些曾为罗马征战四方的伟大将领 们反目成仇，互相征战。他们的士兵效忠于他们，而非共和国。一位伟大的将领脱颖而出，击败了所有其他将领：尤利乌斯·凯撒。为了避免共和国陷入一人独裁，布鲁图斯二世策划刺杀凯撒，但这一举动反而引发了新一轮内战，一方是布鲁图斯及其同谋，另一方是凯撒的支持者。最终，凯撒的侄孙兼养子，也就是凯撒的养子，于公元前27年称帝，成为罗马的第一位皇帝，即奥古斯都。

THE ROMAN REPUBLIC LASTED for a couple of hundred years and then it began to fall into disorder. Rome had expanded; its great generals who had made its conquests became rivals and began to fight each other. Their soldiers were loyal to them rather than to the republic. One great general emerged and conquered all the others: Julius Caesar. The second Brutus organised the assassination of Caesar to save the republic from one-man rule, but that deed simply led to another round of civil wars between Brutus and his fellow conspirators on one side and the friends of Caesar on the other. One man emerged victorious: Caesar’s great-nephew and adopted son, who in 27 BC made himself into Rome’s first emperor under the name Augustus.

奥古斯都非常精明。他保留了共和制度；公民大会照常召开，执政官也照常选举。他不称自己为“皇帝”，而是“第一公民”。他把自己视为一种协调者，或者说他假装自己是协调者，只是帮助体制正常运转。他没有铺张的排场；他没有庞大的随从；他像普通公民一样在罗马城里走动，没有保镖；他他走进仍在开会的元老院，旁听辩论；他本人非常平易近人。问候的方式和表达效忠的方式仍然是举臂敬礼。觐见奥古斯都时，无需鞠躬或表示任何敬意；你和皇帝互相敬礼即可。

Augustus was very astute. He kept the republican institutions; the assemblies still met and consuls were still elected. He called himself not ‘emperor’ but ‘first citizen’. He saw his job as a sort of facilitator, or he pretended he was a facilitator, just helping the machinery to work properly. There was no great pomp; he did not have a great escort; he walked around Rome like an ordinary citizen without a bodyguard; he went into the Senate, which was still meeting, and listened to the debates; he was personally very accessible. The form of greeting and the way you showed your allegiance remained the raised-arm salute. When you came into Augustus’s presence you did not have to bow or show any deference; you and the emperor saluted each other.

奥古斯都试图复兴古罗马的美德。他认为罗马已被奢靡和颓废所侵蚀；他想要恢复，用我们今天的话来说，就是家庭价值观。他驱逐了诗人奥维德，因为奥维德写道，生了孩子的女人不再美丽。他对当时的历史学家李维持批评态度，因为他不认同李维对罗马近代史中一些争端的描述，但在罗马美德方面，他与李维的观点一致：高尚的品行和对国家的忠诚。然而，有一项罗马传统他却无法复兴。罗马如今已是一个帝国，奥古斯都稳定并有效统治着这个帝国，但他依靠的并非兼职的公民士兵，而是一支受薪的常备军。

Augustus tried to revive the old Roman virtues. He thought Rome had been undermined by luxury and decadence; he wanted to restore, as we would say, family values. He banished the poet Ovid for writing that women who had children were no longer so beautiful. He was critical of Livy, the historian, who was writing at this time, because he did not like some of what Livy had written about the disputes in Rome’s recent past, but he was with Livy on the Roman virtues: noble conduct and devotion to the state. But one Roman practice he could not revive. Rome now had an empire which Augustus stabilised and ruled well but with the help, not of part-time citizen-soldiers, but of a paid standing army.

两百年来，帝国享有和平。在其广袤的疆域内，罗马法律和秩序得以贯彻。从形式上看，帝国仍然是一个共和国：皇帝不像国王那样，其子嗣可以继承王位。皇帝会指定继承人，此人可能是亲属，也可能不是，最终由元老院批准。后来，王位觊觎者之间爆发了血腥冲突，但在两百年间，皇帝大多做出了正确的选择，他们的决定也得到了认可。

For two centuries the empire enjoyed peace. Over its vast area, Roman law and Roman order prevailed. In form the empire was still a republic: emperors did not become like kings whose heirs would be kings after them. The emperor chose a successor, who might or might not be a relative, and the Senate would approve the choice. Later there would be bloody conflicts between rival claimants, but for two centuries emperors mostly chose well and their choice was accepted.

公元3世纪，第一次日耳曼入侵浪潮席卷而来，几乎摧毁了帝国。入侵过后，两位皇帝按照新的版图重建了帝国。戴克里先和君士坦丁为了加强帝国的防御，扩充并重组了军队，招募了许多定居在帝国境内的日耳曼人。为了支付庞大军队的开支，皇帝们不得不提高税收。为了确保民众缴纳税款，他们必须进行更精确的人口登记。因此，官僚机构不断壮大，官僚们最终成为帝国的直接统治者。在早期，只要维持和平并按时纳税，各个地区就可以自治。

Then in the third century AD came the first wave of German invasions, which nearly brought the empire down. After the invasions had passed, the empire was reconstructed on new lines by two emperors, Diocletian and Constantine. To shore up the empire’s defences they enlarged and re-organised the army, recruiting many of the Germans who had settled within the borders. To pay for a larger army, the emperors had to raise taxes. To ensure that people paid their taxes, they had to have a more accurate registration of the population. So the bureaucracy grew and the bureaucrats became the direct rulers of the empire. In earlier times the different regions were allowed to run themselves so long as peace was kept and taxes paid.

戴克里先试图通过处死来控制通货膨胀，任何哄抬物价的行为都将受到惩罚。税收增加是为了扩充军队，但如果你经商，就不允许提高价格来支付税款。因此，你可能会觉得经商已经没有意义了。戴克里先对此有自己的应对之策：你必须继续经营你的生意，你的儿子必须继承你的事业。皇帝们此时已走投无路；他们不是在统治一个社会，而是在奴役它。一个在这种统治下的社会缺乏抵御下一波入侵的韧性和士气。

Diocletian attempted to control inflation by making death the punishment for raising prices. Taxes went up to pay for a larger army but if you were in business you were not allowed to raise your prices to help pay for the taxes. So you might think it is not worth being in business anymore. Diocletian had an answer for that: you were obliged to stay in your business and your son had to carry on the business after you. The emperors were now desperate; they were not ruling a society but dragooning it. A society governed in this way did not have the resilience or morale to resist the next wave of invasions.

君士坦丁于公元313年正式支持基督教，是他巩固帝国统治的举措之一。他所寻求的并非教会本身的力量；基督教虽然有所发展，但仍然是少数信仰。君士坦丁和他的许多臣民一样，对古罗马诸神逐渐失去信仰，转而相信基督教的上帝能够更好地庇佑他和帝国。起初，他对基督教的教义知之甚少，但他认为，如果支持基督徒，他们的上帝就会眷顾他。

Constantine’s official support for Christianity in 313 was part of the attempt to strengthen the empire. The strength he sought did not lie in the church as an organisation; Christianity had grown but it was still a minority faith. Constantine, like many of his subjects, was losing faith in the old Roman gods and he came to believe that the Christian god would best protect him and the empire. At first he had only the vaguest idea of what being a Christian entailed, but he thought that if he supported the Christians then their god would favour him.

戴克里先、君士坦丁以及后来的几位皇帝变得越来越疏远民众。他们开始效仿波斯皇帝，把自己塑造成神一般的存在。他们终日待在宫殿里，不像奥古斯都那样在城中巡视。觐见他们之前，都要接受搜身检查。你会被蒙上双眼，穿过迷宫般的通道，以防有人企图刺杀皇帝，让你永远无法找到入口。最终觐见皇帝时，你必须五体投地，也就是平躺在宝座前的地板上。

Diocletian, Constantine and the later emperors became increasingly remote. They began to imitate the Persian emperors and to present themselves as god-like figures. They stayed in their palaces; they were never seen walking around their cities as Augustus had. Before you went into visit them, you were frisked. You were taken blindfolded through a great labyrinth of passages so you would never know your way in again, in case you had it in mind to assassinate the emperor. When finally you got to see the emperor you had to prostrate yourself; that is, you lay flat on the floor before the throne.

随着罗马加强统治，其臣民寻求逃避的方法。大地主们不愿自己纳税，于是变成了……这些土地如同抵抗的孤岛，也庇护着耕耘其土地的人民。在帝国早期，这些人是奴隶。随着罗马征服的停止，奴隶来源枯竭，地主们便将土地分割，出租给奴隶、前奴隶以及寻求庇护的自由人。尽管地主们对后来的皇帝们心怀不满（并试图逃避纳税），但他们却欣然接受了皇帝的新法令：人们必须留在原地，任何试图迁徙的佃户都可能被锁链束缚。不同出身的佃户逐渐获得了相同的地位——他们逐渐变成了中世纪所谓的农奴。他们不像奴隶那样被拥有，他们拥有自己的土地和家庭，但他们不能离开，必须为领主劳作并供养他。

As Rome exerted tighter control, its subjects sought ways to escape. The great landowners, not wanting to pay tax themselves, became islands of resistance, protecting also the people who worked their lands. In the early years of the empire, these were slaves. When the supply of slaves dried up—because Rome’s conquests had ceased—the landowners divided up their lands and rented them out to slaves, ex-slaves and free men who sought their protection. Though the landowners resented (and avoided) paying taxes to the later emperors, they embraced the emperors’ new laws that people had to stay where they were and that any tenant seeking to move could be chained up. The tenants of different origins were coming to assume the same status—they were becoming what were known in the Middle Ages as serfs. They were not owned like slaves, they had their own plot of ground and a family, but they could not leave and were bound to work for and support their lord.

中世纪社会在公元476年之前就已初具雏形，而476年正是我们通常认为的西罗马帝国灭亡之年。当时已经存在着居住在防御工事中的大地主，他们既是耕作其土地的人民的主人，也是他们的保护者。取代西罗马帝国的那些社会，其维系纽带并非对共和国或帝国的效忠，而是个人之间的忠诚。然而，罗马统治在欧洲人的记忆中却有着持续的影响。

Medieval society was taking shape before 476 AD, the date we give for the fall of the empire in the west. There were already great landowners living in fortified houses, the masters and protectors of the people who worked their lands. The societies that replaced the empire in the west were to be held together by personal allegiance, not allegiance to the state, whether republic or empire. But Roman rule had a continuous afterlife in the memory of Europe.

T他指出，取代罗马帝国的西方帝国非常原始。这些国家的体制基础是：国王（以前是武士首领）将土地赐予其追随者，而追随者则有义务为其提供军队。因此，国王无需征税或任何复杂的政府机构就能获得军队。以这种方式持有的土地被称为封地（fief），拉丁语中的“ feudum ”一词便源于此，英语中的“feudal”（封建的） 一词也由此而来。

THE STATES THAT REPLACED the Roman Empire in the west were very primitive. The basis of the state was that the king, formerly a warrior chief, gave out land to his followers, and in return the followers were obliged to provide him with a fighting force. So the king gained his army without taxation or any elaborate machinery of government. Land held in this way came to be called a fief and from that word we get the word feudum in Latin, from which we get the English word ‘feudal’.

封建君主过度依赖大地主的供养，必然是软弱的君主。理论上，他们掌控着分配给他们的土地，但实际上，土地变成了私有财产，并由父子相传。大地主们效忠于国王，但他们有能力违抗或无视国王。他们拥有军队，国王可以随时调动，但这支军队也可以被用来对抗国王，或者使国王难以约束他们。他们居住在城堡中，可以抵御对手和他们的统治者。

Feudal monarchs, relying so heavily on what their great landowning subjects could provide, were necessarily weak monarchs. Theoretically they kept control of the land they had allocated, but in practice the land became private property and was passed down from father to son. The great landowners owed allegiance to the king but they were in a good position to defy or ignore him. They possessed an armed force, on which the king could call, but that force could be used against the king or make it difficult for a king to bring them to heel. They lived in castles and could defend themselves against rivals and their overlord.

此时，军队的性质发生了变化。在古希腊和古罗马，步兵是军队的核心；而现在，骑兵才是军队的重心。马镫这项源自东方的发明，极大地增强了骑兵的威力。骑手双脚踩在马镫上，就能更稳固地立于马背之上；步兵很难将他击落，骑手还能将自身的力量和重量与马匹的力量和重量结合起来，从而形成一个整体的作战力量。骑着马、挥舞长矛疾驰的战士是一支威力无比的战争机器。这些骑兵被称为骑士，或者正在接受骑士训练的侍从。大地主——也就是领主们——会为国王提供大量的骑士。

At this time there was a change in the nature of armed force. In the ancient world of Greece and Rome foot soldiers were the core of armies; now mounted men were central. The stirrup, an invention that came into Europe from the east, made a man on horseback far more formidable. A man in a saddle with his feet in stirrups was more securely on his horse; it was much harder for a foot soldier to knock him off and the mounted man could combine his power and weight with that of the horse so that they operated as a single unit. A man on horseback riding at full gallop with a lance was a very powerful war machine. The mounted men were known as knights or they were knights in training, who were called squires. The great landowners—the lords—would supply so many knights for the king’s service.

个人效忠誓言将领主与国王联系起来。领主单膝跪地，举起紧握的双手以示效忠；国王则将双手环抱在领主的双手上，领主则承诺成为国王的臣民，侍奉国王。宣誓完毕后，臣民起身，国王和臣民一同站立，互相亲吻。因此，这既是一种臣服的仪式，也是一种平等的象征，它表明了双方关系的本质：臣民承诺，只要国王保护他，他就将忠诚。在西欧君主制的初期，统治者与被统治者之间存在着一种不成文的契约，这种观念从未完全消失。

Personal oaths of allegiance bound a lord to the king. The lord gave his allegiance by kneeling down and raising his clasped hands; the king would put his hands around them and the lord would promise to be the king’s man, to serve him. After the allegiance was sworn the subject stood and subject and king, both standing, kissed each other. So this was a ritual of both subservience and equality, which signalled the nature of the relationship: the subject promised to be loyal so long as the king protected him. At the beginning of kingship in western Europe there was an implicit contract between ruler and ruled, an idea that never altogether died.

双手合十是我们现在所知的祈祷姿势，但基督徒最初祈祷时是站着的，双臂伸展，面向东方，因为基督将在那里荣耀地再临。我们祈祷的姿势模仿了向世俗君主效忠的仪式。关于这一仪式的起源及其象征意义，一直存在争议：它究竟是日耳曼的还是罗马的？在罗马社会，即使在鼎盛时期，一个想要出人头地的年轻人也需要一位庇护者；随着帝国的衰落，越来越多的人开始寻求强者的保护。但握手和亲吻的仪式本身却是日耳曼的——是战士与其首领之间建立的纽带。

The hands being held together is the position we know for prayer, but Christians at first prayed standing, with arms outstretched and facing towards the east, whence Christ was to return in glory. Our position for prayer imitates the ritual of giving allegiance to one’s earthly lord. There is argument about the origins of this ritual and the relationship it signified: was it German or Roman? In Roman society, even in its great days, a young man wanting to get on needed a patron and as the empire weakened, more and more people began looking for a strongman to protect them. But the ritual itself of hands and kissing was German—the bond created by warriors and their chief.

国家脱离其统治者的观念消失了。国王驾崩后，所有显赫的臣民都必须向新国王宣誓效忠。只有这样，领土才能建立新的政府。由于政府是一种私人关系，国王可以像莎士比亚戏剧中的李尔王和现实中的查理曼大帝那样，将领土分给子女，尽管他曾竭尽全力巩固帝国。新的政府随后通过新一轮的宣誓效忠而建立。延续性在于血脉，而非王国的领土。罗马皇帝绝不会认为自己可以把帝国分给子女。他的职责是维护帝国的统一。帝国分裂为东西两部分，是为了更好地进行行政和防御。

The concept of the state apart from the people who ran it disappeared. When the king died, all the great subjects had to swear allegiance to the new king. Only then did the territory acquire a new government. Since government was a personal bond, the king could divide his territory among his children as King Lear did in Shakespeare’s play and as Charlemagne did in real life, despite all his effort in putting his empire together. New governments were then created by a new round of swearing allegiance. The continuity lay in the bloodline not in the land of the kingdom. A Roman emperor would not have thought that he could parcel out his empire to his children. His obligation was to hold the empire together. When the empire was divided into west and east, it was done so that its administration and defence could be improved.

由于封建君主权力弱小，他们不得不向国内的权贵征求意见。他们既没有完全掌控的军队，也没有完善的税收制度和文官体系。因此，在做出任何决定之前，他们都会召集各界要人，听取他们的意见并取得他们的同意。当教士、贵族和平民这三个等级在议会中集会时，这种征求意见的制度才得以正式确立。

The feudal monarchs, because they were so weak, were obliged to seek advice from the powerful people in their country. They did not have an army fully under their control or a regular system of taxation or a civil service. So before they took decisions they called the important people together to hear their advice and gain their consent. This system of taking advice was formalised when the three estates of clergy, nobility and commoners met in parliament.

“阶层”并非指土地；在中世纪，“阶层”指的是一群人。这些封建社会将自身视为三个群体：教士，其职责是祈祷；贵族，其职责是战斗；以及平民，即所有从事社会工作、赚钱和劳动的人。“阶层”与阶级截然不同。阶级与经济有着共同的联系，但这三个群体——教士、贵族和平民——是根据其职能来划分的：祈祷、战斗、劳动。他们内部的财富和在经济中所扮演的角色也存在着巨大的差异。教士群体既包括非常富有的大主教和主教，也包括非常贫穷的地方教区牧师。贵族群体既包括国内的富裕地主，也包括贫困的贵族。平民阶层中包括大商人、银行家，他们非常富有，比一些贵族还要富有，并且雇佣其他平民。正是这些富有的、拥有财产的人……向议会派遣代表的是平民百姓，而不是半奴隶农奴的工人和劳动者。

‘Estate’ did not mean landed estate; estate in the Middle Ages meant a group of people. These feudal societies thought of themselves as three groups of people: the clergy, whose duty it was to pray; the nobility, whose duty it was to fight; and the commoners, that is, everyone else who did the work of society, the money-making and the labouring. ‘Estates’ are very different from classes. Classes have a common relationship with the economy but these three groups—clergy, nobility and commoners—were identified by function: praying, fighting, working. There was a huge difference within them as to their wealth and the tasks they performed within the economy. The clergy could and did include include very rich archbishops and bishops as well as the local parish priest, who was a very poor man indeed. The nobility included the great wealthy landowners of the country and also impoverished nobles. The commoners included the great merchants and bankers, very wealthy people, wealthier than some nobles, and who were the employers of other commoners. It was the wealthy and property-owning commoners who sent representatives to parliament, not the workers and labourers, who were semi-slave serfs.

在法国，议会由三院组成，称为三级会议。第一院代表教士，第二院代表贵族，第三院代表平民。在英国，由大主教和主教代表的教士和贵族在上议院集会；平民则在下议院。这些名称在现代英国议会中得以保留，而英国议会与君主制一样，都是中世纪遗留下来的制度。英国如今是民主国家，但它是通过允许所有人选举下议院议员、限制上议院的权力以及将君主变成傀儡而实现的。这种民主制度与古典时代的雅典民主制度截然不同。

In France there were three houses of parliament, which was known as the Estates General. There were the representatives of the clergy in one, the nobility in another, the representatives of the commoners in the third. In England the clergy, who were represented by the archbishops and bishops, and the nobility met together in the House of Lords; the commoners had their House of Commons. These names survive in the modern British parliament which, along with the monarchy, is a survival from medieval times. Britain is now a democracy but it became so by allowing everyone to vote for the House of Commons, limiting the power of the Lords and turning the monarch into a figurehead. It is not a democracy that would be recognisable to democratic Athens in the classical age.

中世纪的议会并非政府的常规组成部分；它们只在君主有特殊需要时才会召开。立法并非议会的主要职责；当君主需要额外财政收入时，议会才会被召集。君主们从极低的权力基础中逐步积累。他们拥有来自自身领地的收入和可以定期征收的税款；但当开支增长，主要是由于战争时，他们需要征收特别税，因此议会便会召开会议予以批准。议会借此机会表达不满，一些新的法律也会被通过，这些法律可能由国王的大臣提出，也可能由议员提出。

The medieval parliaments were not a regular part of government; they were brought together when the monarch had special need of them. Passing laws was not their chief business; they were called together when the monarch had need of extra revenue. From a very low base kings gradually built up their own power. They had the revenues from their own lands and taxes they could regularly collect; but when costs grew, chiefly because of war, they needed to levy special taxation so parliament was called together to approve it. The parliament then had the opportunity to air grievances and some new laws would be passed, initiated either by the king’s ministers or the members of parliament.

随着中世纪城镇的发展，一种不同的政治组织形式也随之形成。城镇由选举产生的议员管理，议员们再选举市长。中世纪君主的权力非常弱小，因此当城镇发展起来后，他们并不试图直接统治它们；他们允许城镇自治，以换取城镇的效忠以及缴纳税款和征费。城镇议会是由地位平等的议员组成的，他们彼此宣誓效忠。这与当时其他地方普遍存在的领主与臣民的制度截然不同。市长和议会作为民选机构，在王国境内管理自己的城市，是欧洲独有的制度。强大的君主不允许其他权力中心发展壮大；他们会阻止其他权力中心的出现。在欧洲，随着商人、银行家和制造商财富的增长，他们凭借半独立的社会地位，权力也日益增强。为了控制这些乡村大领主，君主们开始依赖他们及其财富（通过税收或借贷获取）。这本身也是一种非常不寻常的现象。

As towns grew in the Middle Ages a different form of political organisation developed. The towns were governed by councillors who were elected and they in turn elected a mayor. The medieval monarchs were so weak that when towns developed they did not try to govern them directly; they allowed the towns to govern themselves in return for their allegiance and the payment of taxes and levies. The town council was a gathering of equals and the oath they took was to each other. This was a world very different from lords and subjects, which operated everywhere else. The mayor and council, elected bodies, ruling their own city within a kingdom, is a European invention. Strong monarchs don’t allow rival power centres to develop; they put their own men in charge of cities. In Europe, as merchants, bankers and manufacturers increased their wealth, they were the more powerful because of their semi-independent status. In their battle to control the great lords of the countryside, monarchs came to rely on them and their wealth (which they tapped by tax or borrowing). That too was a most unusual development.

软弱的君主与贵族冲突不断，与议会争斗不休；到了近代，大约从1400年开始，君主逐渐占据上风。封建君主逐渐演变为所谓的绝对君主：他们不再需要依赖议会。他们实际上并没有废除议会，只是不再召开会议。他们找到了新的敛财方式。法国国王甚至出售公职；如果你想……如果你担任海关官员，你需要预先向国王缴纳一大笔钱，然后通过向商人收取费用来收回这笔钱。西班牙国王从新大陆——墨西哥和秘鲁——获得了巨额黄金利润。

Weak monarchs had clashed with their nobles and contested with their parliaments; in modern times, from around 1400, the monarchs began to get the upper hand. Feudal monarchs were turning into what are known as absolute monarchs: they no longer had to rely on their parliaments. They did not actually abolish the parliaments; they simply did not bother to call them any more. They had found new ways of raising money. The French kings sold public offices; if you wanted to be the collector of customs, you paid the king a large sum of money up front which you then recouped by the fees you charged the merchants. The Spanish kings had the windfall profit of gold from the New World—from Mexico and Peru.

“绝对”一词可能会产生误导。它并非意味着欧洲君主可以为所欲为。他们并非暴君；他们必须在日常案件中维护法律，确保臣民得到公正对待；尽管当国家安全受到威胁时，他们也设有更为简易的法庭来处理棘手的案件。他们宣扬君主是上帝在人间的代理人，必须服从，这比早期君主的主张更为激进，但他们也同样受到这一原则的约束，因为他们深知自己的统治最终将受到上帝的审判。当然，他们比封建君主更加尊贵，也更加疏离。君主与臣民之间互吻的仪式已不复存在：臣民跪拜在君主面前，君主或许会伸出手，允许臣民亲吻。

‘Absolute’ can be a misleading term. It did not mean that European monarchs could do as they liked. They were not tyrants; they had to uphold the law in regular cases and see that justice was done to their subjects; although when the safety of the state was in question, they had their own more summary courts to deal with difficult customers. They promoted the idea that kings were God’s agents on earth and had to be obeyed, which was a larger claim than the early kings had made, but they too were constrained by this formula because they knew they would be judged by God for how they ruled. Certainly they were grander and more remote than the feudal monarchs. The ritual of mutual kissing between king and subject no longer operated: you knelt before the monarch, who might extend his hand to allow you to kiss it.

君主们利用自己的财力为自己购置军队。这支军队如今已是步兵为主。中世纪晚期，出现了能将骑士击落马下的新型武器，即长弓和长矛。英国发明了长弓，这种武器比弩威力更大，英国弓箭手可以用它穿透骑兵的盔甲，将他们击落马下。法国人起初认为这种武器有辱尊严，不愿屈服。就像第一次世界大战中冲锋陷阵的士兵一样，法国骑士也向弓箭手发起冲锋，结果被弓箭手们扫射而出。不久之后，法国君主也组建了自己的弓箭手。瑞士人发明了长矛，这是一种又长又重的长枪：行军时扛在肩上，战斗中，步兵方阵会放下长矛，矛尖指向前方，这样就能将进攻的骑兵击落马下，或者用长矛刺穿他们的战马。

Monarchs used their funds to buy themselves their own armies. This was now an army of foot soldiers. In the late Middle Ages new weapons were developed which could knock knights off their horses; these were the longbow and the pike. England developed the longbow, a more powerful weapon than the crossbow, and with it English archers could pierce the armour of mounted men and knock them off their horses. The French at first thought this a dishonourable weapon and refused to be cowed by it. Like the troops charging machine guns in World War I, the French knights charged the archers and were mown down. It did not take long for the French monarch to acquire his own archers. The Swiss developed the pike, which was a long heavy lance: you marched with it over your shoulder and then in battle a square of infantrymen lowered their pikes and pointed them outwards so that attacking horsemen would be knocked off their horses or the horses would be speared by the pikes.

一旦拥有了自己的军队，君主就可以用他们来镇压自己的臣民——无论是反抗国王的大领主，还是拒不缴纳赋税的贫苦农民。中世纪晚期火药传入欧洲，进一步帮助国王控制了他的众多臣民。他的军队可以向城堡城墙发射炮弹并将其摧毁。

Once they had their own armies, monarchs could use them against their own subjects—against great lords who defied the king or poor peasants who refused to pay their taxes. The arrival of gunpowder in Europe in the late Middle Ages helped the king control his great subjects. His army could fire cannonballs at castle walls and destroy them.

欧洲已经恢复正常：政府真正掌权，但其统治者受制于被统治者的奇怪开端仍然具有影响力，因为在英国，议会得以幸存并得到加强，而法国君主被迫在175年后重新召开三级会议。

Europe had returned to normal: governments were truly in charge, but its odd beginning of rulers being subject to the ruled was still influential, for in England the parliament survived and strengthened and a French monarch was forced to revive the Estates General after it had not been summoned for 175 years.

在欧洲大陆，由于君主之间经常交战，国王们有充分的理由发展军队。但为了保卫英国，君主更需要的是海军而非陆军，而海军又无法用来控制国内的敌人。在英国，想要维持一支庞大常备军的国王被视为对英国自由的威胁。这使得英国国王更难获得一支必要时可以用来镇压臣民的军队。尽管如此，在十七世纪，英国君主们仍然试图效仿欧洲模式，成为绝对君主。

On mainland Europe, since monarchs were regularly at war with each other, kings had strong claims to develop armies. But to defend England the monarch needed a navy more than an army, and a navy could not be used to control the king’s domestic enemies. In England, a king wanting to keep a large standing army was regarded as a threat to English liberties. This made it harder for English kings to gain a force that could, if needed, be turned on their subjects. Nevertheless in the seventeenth century, English monarchs tried to become absolute monarchs on European lines.

发起这次尝试的国王都来自斯图亚特王朝，其起源于苏格兰。1603年，伊丽莎白一世女王（又称“童贞女王”）去世后，王位传给了苏格兰国王詹姆斯六世，他同时也是英格兰国王詹姆斯一世。他的所有斯图亚特王朝继承人都统治过这两个王国。

THE KINGS WHO MADE THIS ATTEMPT came from the Stuart line, whose origins were in Scotland. When Queen Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, died in 1603 the throne passed to James VI of Scotland who became, in addition, James I of England. All his Stuart successors ruled over the two kingdoms.

詹姆斯一世、他的儿子查理一世以及他的孙子查理二世和詹姆斯二世都与各自的议会关系不睦。他们处理议会事务时常常笨拙不堪，但他们确实面临着一个棘手的问题。他们需要更多的财政收入，但当他们向议会寻求更多税收时，议会要求对国王的政策拥有更大的控制权。国王自然会抵制议会的干预，于是国王们试图寻找其他途径来获取资金，从而避免再次向议会求助。这无疑加剧了议会的疑虑，因为国王看起来似乎能够像欧洲其他君主那样，完全绕过议会。然而，真正激化这些冲突，以至于人们愿意为议会的事业献出生命的，是宗教。斯图亚特王朝的国王们……要么是天主教徒，要么嫁给了天主教徒，要么对自己的新教徒臣民来说，他们的新教徒信仰不够虔诚。

James I, his son Charles I, and his grandsons Charles II and James II, all fell out with their parliaments. They were frequently ham-fisted in dealing with them but they did face a real problem. They needed more revenue but when they sought more taxation from parliament it demanded a greater control over the king’s policy. The king naturally enough resisted the parliament’s intrusion and the kings tried to find other ways to get money so they would not have to come back to parliament. That of course made the parliament more suspicious, as the king looked like he might be able to do what the monarchs in Europe were doing: bypassing the parliament altogether. But what inflamed these conflicts to the point where men were ready to risk their lives for parliament’s cause was religion. The Stuart kings were either Catholic, married to Catholics, or not Protestant enough for their Protestant subjects.

英国在宗教改革期间成为新教国家，但并非像宗教改革发源地德国那样。英国没有出现像路德那样的人物。英国迈向新教的第一步，源于一位国王——亨利八世的举动。他以拥有六位妻子而闻名。他的第一任妻子是天主教徒，但她无法完成最重要的使命：诞下男性继承人。通常情况下，解决这一难题的办法是教皇找到理由宣布婚姻无效，但教皇有自己的理由，不愿得罪王后的家族——西班牙的统治者。因此，亨利八世在1534年宣布，他自己而非教皇才是英国天主教会的最高领袖。他任命了一位大主教，这位大主教宣布他与凯瑟琳的婚姻无效，并让他迎娶安妮·博林。此后，英国国教（现称英国国教）逐渐变得更加新教化，但仍然保留了一些天主教仪式，并且仍然设有主教和大主教。这激怒了热忱的新教徒——清教徒——他们希望对教会进行彻底的改革。

England became a Protestant country during the Reformation but not in the German way, where the Reformation began. There was not a Luther in England. England made its first step towards Protestantism by an action of a king, Henry VIII. He is famous as the king with six wives. His first wife was Catholic but she could not do what was most required of her: produce a male heir. The usual solution to this difficulty would have been for the pope to find reasons to annul the marriage, but the pope had his own reasons for not wanting to offend the queen’s family, who were the rulers of Spain. So Henry declared in 1534 that he himself, and not the pope, was head of the Catholic church in England. He appointed an archbishop who would annul his marriage to Catherine and marry him to Anne Boleyn. After him the Church of England (now called) became steadily more Protestant but it still kept some Catholic ritual and it still had bishops and archbishops. This upset the zealous Protestants—the Puritans—who wanted a thorough reformation of the church.

詹姆斯一世虽然抵制了清教徒的要求，但他同意重新翻译圣经，这无疑是一项重大贡献。钦定版圣经文笔优美流畅，在接下来的三个世纪里一直是英国人使用的圣经。詹姆斯一世的儿子查理一世在神学和礼仪上更倾向于如今被称为“高圣公会主义”的教义，而这种教义对于大多数新教徒，而不仅仅是清教徒而言，都过于接近罗马天主教。查理一世强行将自己的信仰灌输给英国国教，此举引起了极大的反感。英国国教是英国的官方教会，而查理一世正是该教会的领袖。他本人并非天主教徒，但他的王后却是天主教徒，因此特地为王后安排了一位专属神父，在宫廷中主持弥撒。

James I resisted the demands of the Puritans but he did great service in agreeing to a new translation of the Bible. The King James version, elegant yet sprightly, was the Bible of the English for the next three centuries. Charles I, James’s son, preferred in theology and ritual what is now known as High Anglicanism, which for most Protestants and not just the Puritans was far too close to Rome. Charles caused great offence by forcing his views on the Church of England, which was the official established church, of which he was head. He was not Catholic but his queen was, with special arrangements for her to have her own priest who said mass at court.

查理一世很快与议会陷入僵局，并在接下来的十一年里无视议会，独自统治。他有权这样做，因为议会只有在国王的命令下才会召开。如果他谨慎行事，或许可以找到避免再次召集议会的方法，但他却愚蠢地试图将自己偏爱的宗教信仰强加给他的另一个王国——苏格兰的人民。苏格兰人信奉新教，也更加激进。苏格兰人发动军队入侵英格兰，迫使查理一世放弃这一计划。为了对抗苏格兰人，查理一世需要一支军队，因此被迫召集议会征税以支付军费。议会抓住机会，着手限制国王对教会和国家的权力，并扩大自身的权力。议会处决了查理一世的首席大臣和坎特伯雷大主教。查理一世最初受制于议会，但最终他聚集了一支保皇党来支持自己，议会派和保皇党之间爆发了战争。议会赢得了战争，其最高将领奥利弗·克伦威尔于1649年组织了对国王的审判和处决。之后，克伦威尔代国王执政；他召集议会，但又与议会决裂。在他有生之年，英国实际上处于军事独裁统治之下。克伦威尔去世后，他的一位将军重新召集了查理一世时期的议会，并邀请查理的儿子从流亡中返回英国继承王位。

Charles soon came to an impasse with his parliaments and for eleven years ruled without them, which he was entitled to do because parliament only met at the king’s command. With care he might have found ways to avoid calling parliament ever again, but very stupidly he attempted to impose his preferred mode of worship on the people of his other kingdom, Scotland, who were more Protestant and more fiery. The Scots launched an army into England to force Charles to desist. In order to fight the Scots, Charles needed an army and so was forced to call a parliament to levy the taxation to pay for it. Parliament now had its chance and moved to limit the king’s powers over church and state and increase its own. It executed Charles’s chief minister and his High Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury. Charles was initially at parliament’s mercy but eventually he gathered a royalist party to support him, and parliamentarians and royalists went to war. Parliament won the war and its chief general, Oliver Cromwell, organised the trial and execution of the king in 1649. Cromwell then ruled in the king’s place; he called parliaments and fell out with them and, while he lived, England was in effect a military dictatorship. When he died, one of his generals reconvened the parliament of Charles’s time and it invited Charles’s son to return from exile and take the throne.

查理二世登基之初，国王和议会的权力并未发生任何正式改变，尽管他父亲的处决让他深刻地意识到，不应过度扩张自己的权力。他同情天主教，并在临终前皈依了天主教。他与王后没有子女，但与情妇育有众多子嗣。他的弟弟詹姆斯二世将继承王位，詹姆斯二世公开信奉天主教。议会曾试图通过法律剥夺詹姆斯二世的王位继承权，但国王的回应是解散议会。然而，没有议会，他便无法征税。他通过秘密接受法国专制国王路易十四的资助来克服这一难题。路易十四为了使法国彻底皈依天主教，取消了之前给予新教徒的宗教宽容。成千上万的新教徒被迫逃往其他国家。1685年，法国的新教正遭受攻击，与此同时，信奉天主教的英国在詹姆斯二世的统治下成为国王。

Charles II began his reign with no formal changes to the powers of king and parliament, though the execution of his father was a sharp reminder not to push his claims too far. He was sympathetic to Catholicism and became a Catholic on his deathbed. He had no children by his queen, though many by his mistresses. The next king would be his brother, James, who was openly Catholic. Parliaments tried to pass laws excluding him from the throne, to which the king responded by dismissing the parliaments. But without parliament he could not raise taxes. He overcame this difficulty by secretly receiving funds from the absolutist King of France, Louis XIV, who in order to make France completely Catholic withdrew the toleration that had been granted to Protestants. Thousands fled to other countries. Protestantism in France was under attack at the very moment, 1685, that Protestant England acquired in James II a Catholic king.

尽管詹姆斯明知自己不受欢迎，却依然行事鲁莽。他公开宣扬天主教，并认为天主教才是真正的信仰。经历了英国内战及其后的军事独裁统治之后，许多议员原本愿意容忍詹姆斯，但随后他的王后，也就是他的第二任妻子——一位信奉天主教的女子——诞下了一位男性继承人。英国似乎即将迎来一系列天主教国王。此事发生后，几乎整个议会都决心除掉他。议会领袖们秘密邀请一位新教君主率军前来英国，夺取王位。这位君主就是荷兰人奥兰治的威廉，他娶了玛丽为妻，玛丽是詹姆斯与第一任新教妻子所生的女儿。威廉是欧洲新教事业的捍卫者，曾为保卫国家免受路易十四的侵略而浴血奋战。

James, despite knowing that he was not wanted, did not proceed carefully. He openly promoted Catholicism, which he took to be the true faith. After all the trouble of the English Civil War and the military dictatorship that followed it, many parliamentarians were prepared to put up with James, but then his queen, his second, Catholic wife, produced a male heir. England looked like having a line of Catholic kings. As soon as that happened, nearly the whole of the parliament determined to be rid of him. The parliamentary leaders secretly invited a Protestant ruler to come with his army to England and take the throne. This was the Dutchman, William of Orange, who was married to Mary, a daughter of James by his first Protestant wife. William was a champion of the Protestant cause in Europe and fought battles to protect his country from Louis XIV.

议会的叛国行动进行得非常顺利。当时风向有利，威廉很快就横渡了英吉利海峡。他一上岸，詹姆斯几乎所有的军队就都倒戈投敌。詹姆斯逃往爱尔兰，这非常方便，因为议会不必审判他，也不必处死他。议会只需宣布王位空缺，拥立威廉和玛丽为共同君主即可。

Parliament’s treason went very smoothly. The wind blew favourably and William had a quick passage across the English Channel. As soon as he landed, nearly all James’s troops deserted him and went over to the enemy. James fled to Ireland, which was very convenient because parliament did not have to try him or chop off his head. It simply declared that the throne was vacant and installed William and Mary as joint monarchs.

国王和议会的权力如今由议会重新界定，并且只有在这些条款的约束下，议会才将王位授予威廉和玛丽。这份重写宪法的文件被称为《权利法案》。它既包含了议会的权利，也包含了个人的权利： 

The powers of king and parliament were now redefined by the parliament and only on these terms did it grant the throne to William and Mary. The document that rewrote the constitution was called the Bill of Rights. It is a mixture of rights for parliament and rights for individuals: 

以现代标准来看，这份个人权利清单相当有限，但它却是之后所有权利声明的奠基文件。美国的权利法案甚至包含了“残酷和不寻常的惩罚”这一表述。 

By modern standards this is a limited list of individual rights, but this was the foundation document for all subsequent statements of rights. The United States’ Bill of Rights even includes the very term ‘cruel and unusual punishments’. 

议会由此成为宪法的永久组成部分，而且没有流血牺牲。这场由议会发起的政变 被称为“光荣革命”。君主仍然保留着相当大的权力：任命大臣、制定政策、缔结条约、宣战。但由于君主只有获得议会的同意才能获得财政收入，他们不得不选择在议会中拥有支持的大臣。随着时间的推移，这种限制最终形成了如今英国以及所有沿袭威斯敏斯特式政府体制的国家所实行的制度：君主或其代表名义上拥有权力，但在所有事务上都必须听从对议会负责的大臣的建议。

Parliament had thus made itself into a permanent part of the constitution. And all without any blood being spilt. This coup by parliament gained the name ‘The Glorious Revolution’. The monarch was still left with considerable power: to choose ministers, to direct policy, to make treaties, to declare war. But since monarchs could only get revenue with the consent of parliament, they had to choose ministers who had support in parliament. Over time this constraint led to the system that operates in Britain today and in all the countries that have followed the Westminster style of government: the monarch or their representative is officially in charge but in all matters they are obliged to follow the advice of ministers responsible to parliament.

威廉和玛丽没有孩子。安妮，玛丽的妹妹，和詹姆斯

William and Mary had no children. Anne, Mary’s sister and James

二世的女儿继位，但她没有子嗣。议会随后决定下一任君主。议会放弃了许多拥有强大继承权的斯图亚特王朝天主教后裔，选择了德国汉诺威选帝侯夫人索菲娅，她是新教徒詹姆斯一世的孙女。她和她的继承人将成为新的王室。议会精心策划，力图拥立一位符合其心意的君主。安妮去世时，索菲娅也已去世，因此王位传给了她的儿子乔治，乔治不会说英语，而且大部分时间都待在汉诺威。

II’s daughter, ruled after them and she had no children who lived. Parliament then determined who should be the next monarch. It passed over many Catholic descendants of the Stuart line who had strong claims and chose Sophia, the Electress of Hanover in Germany, a granddaughter of James I, who was a Protestant. She and her heirs would be the new royal line. The parliament had organised to get the sort of monarch it wanted. By the time Anne died, Sophia too was dead, so the crown passed to her son George, who did not speak English and who spent much of his time in Hanover.

在制定这些安排时，议会作出了两项重要规定，这两项规定至今仍是英国宪法的一部分：

In setting these arrangements in place, parliament made two important provisions, which are still part of the English constitution:

《权利法案》确保了议会——立法机关——成为政府体系中强大、永久且独立的组成部分。法官的独立性也因此得到保障。行政机构——国王及其大臣——任命他们。国家被确立为新教国家，这被视为其自由的保障。新教在其早期阶段拥护个人自由，因为它挑战了教皇和主教的权威，并提升了个人良知和经验。在英国，新教与自由的联系更为紧密，因为英国的敌人——法国和西班牙的专制君主——信奉天主教，而那些试图绕过议会的英国国王要么是天主教徒，要么被认为对天主教态度软弱。维护议会和维护新教信仰成为同一目标。

The Bill of Rights ensured that parliament—the legislature—was a strong, permanent and independent part of the system of government. The independence of the judges was now secured from the executive—the king and his ministers—who appointed them. The state was fixed as Protestant, which was seen as a guarantee of its freedoms. Protestantism in its beginning was an endorsement of individual freedom because it was a defiance of the authority of popes and bishops and an elevation of individual conscience and experience. In England it was the more firmly attached to freedom because the enemies of England—the absolutist monarchs of France and Spain—were Catholic, and the English kings who attempted to bypass parliament were either Catholic or seen to be soft on Catholicism. Preserving parliament and preserving the Protestant faith became the same cause.

通过这些方式，组成议会的英国贵族和地主绅士们建立了一个自由国家的制度框架。它并非完全自由，因为它建立在对天主教徒的敌视之上，也并非通过拥抱自由主义原则而实现的。议会始终宣称，它只是在维护其古老的权利和自由。正是在与国王的长期斗争中，议员们摸索出了制衡任何企图效仿欧洲大陆绝对君主的国王的必要手段：国王必须召集议会；没有议会，国王就不能征税；国王不能控制法院。而更广泛的原则，则是在取得胜利之后才逐渐清晰起来的。

In these ways the aristocracy and landed gentlemen of England, who composed its parliament, established the institutional arrangements of a liberal state. It was not totally liberal because it was based on hostility to Catholics. Nor was it reached by the embracing of liberal principles. Parliament always declared it was merely preserving its ancient rights and liberties. It was during long battles with kings that parliamentarians had worked out what was necessary to checkmate any king who had a mind to operate like the absolute monarchs on the continent: he must call parliament; he can’t tax without it; he mustn’t control the courts. The broader principles became clear after the victory was won.

为议会政变奠定基础的自由主义原则的哲学家是英国人约翰·洛克。他的著作《政府论两篇》于1690年出版，正值法国大革命之后。洛克借鉴罗马的自然法思想，论证了人拥有生命、自由和财产等自然权利，并且在组建政府时，人民订立了一种契约：他们赋予政府权力，以便保护自身的权利。但如果这些权利得不到保护，人民就有权罢免现有政府并建立新的政府。君主的神性、臣民的服从义务——所有这些都被抛弃，政府被简化为一种商业交易。但洛克并非第一个将政府视为契约的人：封建君主与其臣民之间的关系早已隐含了这种契约的概念，而且只要议会仍然存在（即便只是存在于人们的头脑中），这种观念就一直存在。与臣民共同统治而非对抗臣民的理念得以延续。在英国，洛克的著作为过去发生的事情辩护，不再具有革命性；而对于后来的美国和法国起义者来说，它提供了反抗的正当理由和权利话语，他们正是以此来构建新的秩序。

The philosopher who formulated the liberal principles to support the parliamentary coup was the Englishman John Locke. His book Two Treatises of Government was published in 1690, just after the revolution. Locke argued, drawing on the Roman idea of natural law, that men have certain natural rights to life, liberty and property, and that in forming governments they make a contract: they confer power on governments so that their rights can be protected. But if these rights are not protected then the people have the right to dismiss this government and form another. The god-like character of kings, the obligation of subjects to obey—all this was swept aside and government made into a business-like transaction. But the philosopher was not the first to make government a contract: this had been implicit in the relationship between feudal monarchs and their subjects and while parliament continued to exist, even if only in men’s heads, the notion of ruling with subjects and not against them survived. In England, Locke’s book justified what had happened in the past and was no longer revolutionary; to American and French rebels later, it gave the justification for revolt and the language of rights by which they defined their new order.

法国大革命初期，其目标是建立一个类似英国的君主立宪制国家。改革者们的契机出现在18世纪80年代，当时的君主濒临破产。路易十六任命了改革派财政大臣，计划使原本混乱不堪的税收制度更加统一、公平和高效。其中最引人注目的变革是，贵族首次与其他民众一样缴纳相同的税款。此前，贵族们之所以能够少缴税款，是因为他们为国家做出了贡献，为国家提供兵力。如今，君主不再需要依靠这种方式来获取军队，但贵族们自然反对这项税制改革。专制君主为了建立自己控制的国家，将贵族边缘化，但并未彻底消灭他们。贵族拥有极高的威望，并在法院（负责登记皇家法令）、宫廷和军队中担任要职。他们因被要求纳税而强烈抗议，出人意料的是，这种对古老权利的“暴政”式侵犯的抵抗赢得了广泛的民众支持——这表明君主专制的局限性。如果换作一位比路易更大胆、更坚定的君主，或许会强行推行改革；但他却接受了各方建议，认为只有获得议会的授权才能引入新的税收制度。于是，在时隔175年后，三级会议再次召开。

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION in its early days had as its aim the creation of a constitutional monarchy like England’s. The reformers got their chance because in the 1780s the monarch was close to bankrupt. Louis XVI employed reforming finance ministers who planned to make the ramshackle taxation system uniform, fairer and more efficient. The most spectacular change was that the nobility was, for the first time, to pay tax at the same rate as everyone else. They had previously paid less on the grounds that they contributed to the state by providing themselves and their men to fight for it. This was no longer how the monarch acquired his armed force but of course the nobility opposed the tax-reform measure. The absolute monarchs had sidelined the nobility in order to create a state that they controlled, but they had not eliminated them. Nobles had enormous prestige and held important positions in the law courts (that had to register royal decrees), at the king’s court and in the army. They raised a storm of protest at being asked to pay tax and strangely won a lot of popular support for this resistance to a ‘tyrannical’ attack on an ancient right—which shows how limited royal absolutism was. A bolder, more determined monarch than Louis might have pressed on and enforced the change; instead he accepted the advice from all quarters that only with the authority of parliament could a new taxation scheme be introduced. So after a gap of 175 years, the Estates General was summoned.

会议召开方式的问题立刻引发了激烈的争论。三个等级（或称三级）各自拥有自己的议院：教士、贵族和平民（在法国被称为第三等级）。任何法案在通过之前都必须得到三个议院的一致同意。第三等级的领袖们，主要是律师，深知如果他们没有得到一致同意，那么他们为法国制定新宪法的机会将微乎其微。为了获得贵族和教士的同意，他们要求三院共同开会投票，并要求为了承认第三等级的人数、勤劳和财富，赋予其双倍的代表名额。国王起初拒绝改变原有的会议方式；后来他勉强让步，但正如路易一贯的作风，他反而使情况变得更糟。他同意将第三等级的代表人数增加一倍，但三院仍需分别开会。当然，只要三院继续分开开会，第三等级的代表人数多少就无关紧要了；无论他们提出什么议案，都可以被贵族或教士否决。

Immediately a fierce argument broke out over how it was to meet. The three orders or estates each had their own house of parliament: clergy, nobility and commons (or Third Estate, as it was known in France). Before any measure was adopted all three houses had to agree to it. The leaders of the Third Estate, chiefly lawyers, knew their chance of giving France a new constitution would be slim if they had to get agreement from the nobles and clergy. They demanded that the three houses meet and vote together and that as recognition of the Third Estate’s number, industry and wealth it should have double the number of representatives. The king at first refused any change to the old manner of meeting; then he half yielded and, as was the way with Louis, made matters worse. He agreed to double the representation of the Third Estate, but the houses were still to meet separately. So long as they did that, of course, it made no difference how many representatives the Third Estate had; whatever they proposed could be vetoed by the nobility or clergy.

1789年三级会议召开时，争论仍在继续。第三等级宣布自己才是真正的国民议会，并邀请其他等级加入。一天，当他们抵达凡尔赛宫的会议地点时，却发现大门紧闭。原来是因为房间要粉刷，但代表们惊慌失措，担心国王会下令解散，于是立即前往附近的一个室内网球场，在那里宣誓，在为法国制定宪法之前绝不解散。皇家画家大卫描绘了这一场景，这幅画作堪称艺术与现实的结合典范。五年前，大卫创作了《荷拉斯兄弟的誓言》，画中荷拉斯父子举起双臂，行共和礼。第三等级的革命者们在宣誓为法国制定宪法时，也采用了同样的礼仪。

The argument continued when the Estates General met in 1789. The Third Estate declared itself to be the true National Assembly and invited the other orders to join it. One day when they arrived at their meeting place in the royal palace at Versailles, they found the doors shut. The doors were only shut because the room was to be painted, but the delegates were so jumpy, fearing that the king was going to close them down, that they went immediately to a nearby indoor tennis court and there swore oaths not to disband until they had given France a constitution. There is a drawing by the royal artist David of this moment, which is a famous case of life following art. Five years earlier, David had painted The Oath of the Horatii, which shows the Horatius father and his sons with arms raised in the republican salute. The same salute was used by the revolutionaries of the Third Estate as they vowed to give France a constitution.

许多教士和少数贵族加入了国民议会。国王表示，他会在宪法中赋予三级会议永久地位，但他不会同意三个等级共同召开会议。他威胁说，如果议会不恢复三院制，他将对议会施以暴力——但遭到反抗后，他并未诉诸武力。国王最终让步，勉强地要求其他等级加入第三等级。

Many of the clergy and a few of the nobles did join the National Assembly. The king indicated that he would give the Estates General a permanent place in the constitution but he would not consent to the three estates meeting together. He threatened violence to the assembly if it did not return to being one house in three—but when met with defiance, he did not resort to it. The king backed down and very lamely told the other orders to join the Third Estate.

大会的领导人都是启蒙运动的代表人物；他们秉持着非常明确的自由主义和平等主义原则。他们的口号是自由、平等、博爱。大会发表了题为《人权和公民权宣言》的宣言；这些权利不仅适用于法国人，也适用于全人类。以下是其主要条款的概要：

The leaders of the assembly were men of the Enlightenment; they had very clear liberal and egalitarian principles. Their slogan was liberty, equality and fraternity. The assembly issued its manifesto under the title Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen; these were rights not just for the French, they were rights for all mankind. These are in summary form its chief articles:

这是一份光荣的文件，是现代民主的奠基之作，但它注定会引发一场不光彩的革命。那些拥护这些原则的人想要建立像英国那样的君主立宪制，但当主权被宣告属于国家，人人平等时，国王又有何保障可言？文件的制定者们想要自己统治，因此在起草宪法时，他们决定只有财产所有者才有投票权。但既然平民已被宣告平等，他们又怎能将平民排除在外呢？正是平民的行动迫使路易十四假装接受了这一宣言；他们攻占了巴士底狱，迫使国王离开凡尔赛宫，与巴黎民众同住。平民百姓既然参与了革命，就绝不会就此罢休。

It is a glorious document, the founding document of modern democracy, but it was bound to produce an inglorious revolution. The men who endorsed these principles wanted a constitutional monarchy like England’s, but what security did a king have when sovereignty had been proclaimed as residing with the nation and all men had been declared equal? The framers of the document wanted themselves to rule and decided, when they came to draw up a constitution, that only property-holders should vote. But how could they exclude the common people when they had been declared to be equal? It was only by the action of the common people that Louis was forced into the pretence of accepting the declaration; they had stormed the royal fortress of the Bastille and forced the king to leave his palace at Versailles and live in the midst of the people in Paris. The common people, having helped make the revolution, were not going to go away.

法国此前被许诺和威胁的太多，以至于不可能像英国那样制定宪法，也不可能像1688年那样发生不流血革命。那场革命并非基于新的原则；如今，新的原则却泛滥成灾。国王很快明确表示他不接受这些原则，并会尽可能地推翻任何对其统治的改变。这给了激进派机会。他们坚持认为，为了确保任何变革的稳固，他们必须与人民结盟，并控制甚至废黜国王。这引发了那些渴望变革，但又不愿接受由人民掌权的民主变革的人们的反弹。

Too much had been promised and threatened for France to produce a constitution like England’s or a bloodless revolution like 1688. That revolution had not worked on new principles; now there was an over-abundance of new principles. The king soon made clear that he did not accept the principles and would undo any changes to his rule if he could. That gave the radicals their chance. They insisted that they had to make alliance with the people and control or remove the king in order to make any change secure. That bred a reaction in those who wanted change, but not democratic change with the people in charge.

革命者很快就陷入了内讧。大卫从未将他画的网球场宣誓场景变成油画的原因之一是，当时在场的许多人被处决，罪名是革命的敌人。激进分子自称为雅各宾派，因为他们的集会地点位于一座前多明我会修道院（雅各宾派）；他们的领袖是冷酷无情的马克西米连·罗伯斯庇尔。雅各宾派将自己变成了一个革命独裁政权。他们处决了国王，将反对者驱逐出议会，查封了他们的报纸，并设立了专门的“袋鼠法庭”来处决革命叛徒。他们建立独裁政权的理由很简单：法国正处于生死存亡的危险之中，因为革命者为了迫使欧洲君主国接受《人权宣言》的原则，不惜与它们开战。他们为此目的建立的军队是一种新型军队，是对全国所有男性的征召——全民武装。

The revolutionaries were soon fighting among themselves. One reason why David never turned his drawing of the Tennis Court Oath into a painting was that a number of the people who had been present had been executed as enemies of the revolution. The radicals adopted the name the Jacobins, since they met in a former convent of the Dominicans (Jacobins); their leader was the cold, steely Maximilien Robespierre. The Jacobins turned themselves into a revolutionary dictatorship. They executed the king, expelled their opponents from the assembly and closed down their newspapers, and set up special kangaroo courts to execute traitors to the revolution. They had this much excuse for a dictatorship: France was in mortal danger because the revolutionaries had courted war with the monarchies of Europe in order to force them to adopt the principles of the Rights of Man. The army they created for this purpose was of a new sort, a conscription of all the manhood of the nation—the people in arms.

革命者们读过李维的著作。革命暴政的守护圣人是布鲁图斯，罗马共和国的缔造者，他他同意处死自己的儿子。在大会讲台旁，摆放着布鲁图斯的半身像。街道被重新命名为布鲁图斯街；父母也给孩子取名布鲁图斯。由于雅各宾派建立了共和国，纸牌上不再能出现国王、王后和杰克的形象。取而代之的是圣贤、美德和战士的形象。布鲁图斯就是其中一位圣贤。国王被称为塔奎因，而且，如同在罗马一样，呼吁恢复君主制是一种冒犯。那种不屈不挠的共和美德——认为一切都应为国家牺牲——甘愿见血流成河并认为这是一种净化：这就是罗马对第一个现代极权国家的贡献。

The revolutionaries had read their Livy. The patron saint of revolutionary tyranny was Brutus, the founder of the Roman Republic who agreed to the execution of his own sons. There was a bust of Brutus in the assembly beside the podium. Streets were renamed Brutus; parents called their children Brutus. Since the Jacobins had created a republic, there could no longer be playing cards depicting kings, queens and jacks. Instead there were sages, virtues and warriors. Brutus was one of the sages. The king was referred to as Tarquin and, as in Rome, it was an offence to call for the restoration of the monarchy. That implacable republican virtue—the belief that everything should be sacrificed for the state—the willingness to see blood flow and to think it was purifying: this was the Roman contribution to the first modern, totalitarian state.

哦我们的历史始于一个伟大的帝国，随后是它的崩溃。欧洲从罗马帝国汲取了许多养分，并深受其崩溃本质的影响。爱德华·吉本的巨著《罗马帝国衰亡史》早已深深烙印在我们的记忆中。在那场浩劫之后，人们该是怎样的感受？曾经存在过一个伟大的文明，如今却已消逝。但如果你问一位中世纪的贵族或学者，罗马帝国灭亡后的生活是怎样的，他们一定会感到困惑。在他们眼中，罗马帝国依然存在。事实上，一直到十九世纪，都存在着一个名为“罗马帝国”的实体。最后一位罗马皇帝的血统可以追溯到奥古斯都。这究竟是怎么回事？

OUR HISTORY BEGINS WITH A GREAT empire and then with its collapse. Europe took much from the Roman Empire and was profoundly shaped by the nature of that collapse. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the title of Edward Gibbon’s great history, is etched into our consciousness. What must it have felt like to live after that event, to know there had been a great civilisation and now it was gone? But if you were to ask a medieval lord or scholar what it was like to live now that the Roman Empire was no more, they would have been puzzled. In their eyes the Roman Empire still survived. There was in fact something called the Roman Empire existing into the nineteenth century. The last Roman emperor traced his line back to Augustus. How was this so?

奥古斯都的统治始于公元前27年，他建立的西罗马帝国延续了500年。公元400年左右，帝国永久分裂为东西两部分，东罗马帝国又延续了一千年，直至1453年灭亡。入侵西罗马帝国的蛮族承认东罗马帝国皇帝的统治。法兰克王国的第一位基督教国王克洛维从东罗马皇帝那里获得了“执政官”的称号。留在罗马的教皇也承认东罗马皇帝的统治。在教皇看来，尽管蛮族入侵不断，西罗马帝国也已崩溃，但旧秩序的关键部分仍然完好无损。罗马有一位教皇，君士坦丁堡也有一位基督教罗马皇帝。教皇和皇帝这两个权威共同统治着基督教世界。然而，当教皇真正需要东罗马皇帝的帮助时，皇帝却无能为力。

The reign of Augustus began in 27 BC and in the west the empire he founded lasted for 500 years. Around 400 AD the empire was permanently divided into east and west and the eastern empire survived another thousand years until 1453. The barbarians who invaded the western Roman Empire acknowledged the emperor of the eastern empire. Clovis, the first Christian king of the Franks, received the title ‘Consul’ from the emperor in the east. The pope, who survived in Rome, also acknowledged the eastern emperor and in the pontiff’s eyes, despite all the barbarian invasions and the collapse of the empire in the west, the key parts of the old order were still intact. There was a pope in Rome and there was an emperor, a Christian Roman emperor, who now resided in Constantinople. Those two authorities, the pope and the emperor, would jointly control Christendom. But when the pope really needed the eastern emperor’s help, the emperor couldn’t do much to save him.

教皇面临的危险来自伦巴第人，他们是八世纪第二波入侵意大利的日耳曼人。他们准备完全占领意大利，包括罗马及其周边地区。这对教皇构成了巨大的威胁。即使在今天，教皇仍然拥有自己的领地——梵蒂冈城。它面积虽小，但却是教皇的独立国家；教皇并不属于意大利。教皇们一直担心，如果他们无法在自己的领土上拥有主权，他们的独立性就会消失。试想一下，如果梵蒂冈只是意大利的一部分，会是什么样子？意大利可能会通过一项法律，规定在生活的各个领域，包括教会，都应该享有平等的机会。教会将会因为从未任命过女性主教，更不用说教皇了，而受到调查。教会的财富可能会被意大利政府征税。意大利甚至可能会通过一项法律，规定所有公共厕所都必须配备避孕套。

The danger to the pope came from the Lombards, who were a second wave of German invaders in the eighth century. They were poised to make a complete takeover of Italy, including Rome and the lands around it. This represented a great threat to the pope. Even today, the pope still has his own individual plot of ground, Vatican City. It is tiny but it is his own state; he is not part of Italy. The popes have always feared that their independence would disappear if they were not sovereign in their own territory. Imagine if the Vatican were just part of Italy. Italy might pass a law saying there should be equal opportunity in all spheres of life, including the church. The church would be investigated for never having appointed a female bishop, let alone a pope. The church’s wealth might be taxed by the Italian state. Italy might pass a law saying there should be condoms in all public toilets.

八世纪的教皇同样不愿受制于伦巴第人。他曾向东罗马皇帝寻求帮助，但皇帝正忙于应对穆斯林对其领土的入侵。于是，教皇将目光投向阿尔卑斯山以北的法兰克人，也就是在如今的法国境内建立起西方最强大国家的日耳曼人。信奉基督教的法兰克国王丕平南下意大利，征服了伦巴第人。他确保教皇在罗马周围留下了一大片领土，这片领土归教皇所有。尽管边界几经变更，这片领土一直作为教皇的领地延续到十九世纪。直到意大利统一国家建立后，教皇才被限制在他如今这 片狭小的王国之中。

The pope in the eighth century likewise did not want to become subject to the control of the Lombards. He sought help from the eastern emperor, but he was too busy dealing with the Muslim invasions of his territory. So the pope looked north across the Alps to the Franks, the Germans who had made the strongest state in the west, in what is now France. King Pepin, the Christian Frankish king, went south into Italy and subdued the Lombards. He made sure that the pope was left with a large belt of territory around Rome, which was to be his. With many changes of boundaries this territory survived as the pope’s until the nineteenth century. It was only then, with the creation of a unified Italian state, that the pope was confined to the pocket-handkerchief kingdom he has today.

国王丕平的儿子是查理大帝，又称查理曼大帝。他极大地扩张了法兰克王国的领土。他的疆域越过比利牛斯山脉延伸至西班牙；横跨意大利中部，包括他父亲划给教皇的土地；向东延伸至奥地利，并深入到今天的德国境内。自罗马帝国灭亡以来，除了希特勒和拿破仑短暂的帝国之外，欧洲再无任何国家能达到如此辽阔的疆域。在德国，查理曼与撒克逊人打交道，这些撒克逊人并未进入罗马帝国。他们是异教徒；查理曼给了他们两个选择：要么皈依基督教，要么沦为奴隶，被运回他的故土。

King Pepin’s son was Charles the Great or Charlemagne. He greatly expanded the territory of the Frankish kingdom. His lands extended across the Pyrenees into Spain; halfway down Italy including the land his father had allotted to the pope; in the east to Austria and well into modern Germany. Since the fall of Rome, there has been no single European state that was so extensive except for the short-lived empires of Hitler and Napoleon. In Germany Charlemagne was dealing with the Saxons, who had not crossed into the Roman Empire. They were pagans; he gave them the option of converting to Christianity or being made into slaves and shipped back to his heartland.

公元800年，查理曼大帝访问罗马，并在圣诞节当天于大教堂参加了弥撒。弥撒结束后，教皇似乎毫无预兆地将皇冠戴在查理曼头上，宣布他为罗马皇帝。他拥立自己的皇帝，是为了获得能够保护自己的权力。但由于他背弃了东方的皇帝，他需要一个借口来掩盖自己的行为。还有什么比这更容易的呢？一位女皇帝在君士坦丁堡登基；她弄瞎了身为皇帝的儿子，除掉了他，自己登上了皇位。由于教皇的这一举动，她不再是西方的皇帝了。

In the year 800 Charlemagne visited Rome and attended mass on Christmas Day in the cathedral. After the mass, and seemingly with no prior warning, the pope placed a crown on Charlemagne’s head and declared him to be Roman emperor. He made his own emperor in order to have a power that would protect him. But since he was turning his back on the emperor in the east, he needed to have an excuse for what he was doing. What could be easier! A woman had become emperor in Constantinople; she had blinded her son, who was the emperor, got rid of him and put herself on the throne. By the pope’s deed, she was no longer emperor over the west.

后来，教皇和皇帝就公元800年圣诞节在大教堂发生的事情展开了激烈的争论。教皇强调，是教皇亲自将王冠戴在了查理曼大帝的头上，这表明教皇的地位高于皇帝。但是，教皇在将王冠戴在查理曼大帝头上之后，却向他鞠躬。皇帝们则认为，教皇此举是在承认……皇帝拥有至高无上的权力。皇帝们理所当然地认为，教皇之所以能够选择这位保护者，是因为查理曼大帝凭借自身实力成为了一位强大的君主。他的强大并非依赖于教皇的援助。

There was later great dispute between popes and emperors about what had happened in the cathedral on Christmas Day 800. Popes emphasised that it was the pope who put the crown on Charlemagne’s head, which indicated that the pope was superior to the emperor. But after the pope put the crown on Charlemagne’s head, he bowed to Charlemagne. Emperors said that the pope was thus acknowledging the superior power of the emperor. Emperors reasonably said that the pope was only able to choose this protector because Charlemagne had made himself a strong figure in his own right. His strength hadn’t depended on the pope’s assistance.

查理曼的帝国与罗马帝国截然不同，查理曼本人也与罗马皇帝大相径庭。他本质上仍然是一个蛮族国王。他自学成才，学会了阅读——确切地说，他能读懂拉丁文——但写作却十分困难。直到生命的尽头，他床边都放着一块小小的蜡板，用来练习书写，但他始终未能真正掌握。不过，他对帝国作为一种文明力量有着清晰的理解，这源于他对罗马帝国的借鉴。他的日耳曼祖先靠掠夺为生，正是对更多掠夺的渴望驱使他们加入了罗马帝国。有些政府的组织方式，实际上就是一个掠夺体系，旨在让当权者及其亲信中饱私囊。古代和现代都有这样的政府。生活在西罗马帝国末期的圣奥古斯丁在他的著作《上帝之城》中写道：“ 如果没有正义，王国又有什么意义呢？不过是巨大的掠夺罢了。”查理曼大帝了解这部作品，也理解其中的道理；圣奥古斯丁是他最喜爱的作家之一。对于东方的异教徒撒克逊人，他可以残酷无情，直到他们皈依基督教。但一旦他统治下的撒克逊人成为基督徒，他就亲自确保他们得到公正的统治。

Charlemagne’s empire was a very different empire from the Roman, and Charlemagne was a very different ruler from a Roman emperor. He was basically still a barbarian king. He was educating himself; he had learnt to read—that is, he could read Latin—but he had difficulty writing. Until the end of his life he kept a little wax tablet beside his bed in order to practise his writing, but he never really got the knack of it. But he did have a clear understanding of empire as a civilising force, something he learnt from the Roman example. His German ancestors had lived by plunder and it was the desire for more plunder that took them into the Roman Empire. Governments can be organised so that they are just a system of plunder to enrich those in power and their friends. There are ancient and modern governments like this. Saint Augustine, who lived in the last days of the Roman Empire in the west, wrote in his City of God: ‘If there is no justice, what are kingdoms but great robberies?’ Charlemagne knew of this work and understood this point; Saint Augustine was one of his favourite authors. With the pagan Saxons in the east he could be savage and cruel until they converted to Christianity. But once they were Christians within his realm, he took it upon himself to make sure that they were ruled justly.

查理曼大帝虽然自身学识不深，却大力倡导教育，并成为学者们的赞助人，下令搜寻并抄写古代手稿。几乎所有流传至今的拉丁文著作都是在查理曼时期抄写的。如果没有他，古典文化遗产将会非常稀少。

Charlemagne, though poorly educated himself, encouraged education and became the patron of learned men, who were ordered to find and copy the ancient manuscripts. Nearly all the Latin works that have survived were copied in Charlemagne’s time. Without him the classical inheritance would have been very slim.

查理曼面临着巨大的挑战。他没有官僚机构；通讯落后；贸易稀少；城镇规模很小；社会一片混乱。在所有这些方面，他的帝国都与罗马帝国截然不同。他的统治方式是在全国各地任命伯爵和公爵，以维持地方领主的秩序，并确保他们效忠于查理曼。这个帝国缺乏制度基础；其统治依赖于统治者的个人权力。

Charlemagne faced huge handicaps. He had no bureaucracy; communications were poor; there was little trade; towns were tiny; there was a great amount of chaos. In all of this, his empire was most unlike the Roman. His mode of government was to appoint counts and dukes throughout his realm to keep the local lords in order and to ensure that they gave their allegiance to Charlemagne. There was no institutional base to this empire; its government depended on the personal power of its leader.

查理曼大帝在亚琛建造了他的宫殿，靠近如今德国和比利时的边界，在他那个时代，这里也位于他王国的中心地带。如今，宫殿仅存一座小教堂。这座小教堂采用罗马式风格建造，也就是仿照罗马的建筑风格，拥有圆拱。支撑这些拱门的柱子实际上是罗马时代的遗物；查理曼大帝将它们从意大利运回了亚琛。

Charlemagne built his palace at Aachen, close to the present border between Germany and Belgium and in his time close to the centre of his realm. Only the chapel survives. It is built in the Romanesque style, that is, after the style of Rome, with the rounded arches. The pillars supporting the arches were actually Roman; Charlemagne brought them back from Italy.

查理曼大帝耗费巨资建立起庞大的帝国后，按照德国人的惯例，决定死后将帝国分封给儿子们。然而，他只有一个儿子活了下来，因此帝国的分裂发生在下一代，也就是他的孙辈之间。孙辈们互相争斗，查理曼的帝国最终分裂成三部分。西部最终发展成为今天的法国；东部则成为德国的基础。但在孙辈之间的争斗以及北欧入侵带来的混乱中，查理曼的统治手段荡然无存。伯爵和公爵们逐渐成为地方强人，对任何国王的效忠都十分薄弱。欧洲又回到了罗马帝国灭亡后的局面：权力高度分散，要想再次建立强大的王国，国王必须先征服伯爵和公爵。

After building up this huge empire with such great effort, Charlemagne decided in the customary German way that after his death it should be subdivided among his sons. But only one son of his survived, so the division of the empire occurred at the next generation, among his grandchildren. The grandsons fought among themselves and Charlemagne’s empire fell into three parts. The western part eventually became modern-day France; the eastern part became the basis of Germany. But in the fights among his grandchildren and in the chaos of the Norse invasions, Charlemagne’s methods of control disappeared. The counts and dukes established themselves as local strongmen with only very weak allegiance to whomever might be king. Europe had reverted to what it was immediately after the fall of Rome: power was very much dispersed and before there could be strong kingdoms again, kings would have to subdue counts and dukes.

随着查理曼帝国的覆灭，教皇失去了保护他的强力人物。一段时间内，他只能依靠找到的地方诸侯，并册封他们为皇帝。962年，一位新的、强大的国王奥托一世在查理曼帝国的德意志地区崛起。教皇册封他为罗马皇帝，此后，凡是成为德意志国王的人，经教皇加冕后，便同时成为罗马皇帝，后来又成为神圣罗马帝国皇帝。

With the disappearance of Charlemagne’s empire, the pope had lost his strongman to protect him. For a while he made do with whatever local princes he could find and crowned them emperor. Then in 962 a new, strong king, Otto the First, emerged in the German part of Charlemagne’s old empire. The pope crowned him as Roman emperor and thereafter whoever became the king of Germany was, after being crowned by the pope, also Roman emperor and later Holy Roman emperor.

德意志国王是欧洲唯一由选举产生的国王。在加入罗马帝国之前，德意志人实行的是世袭与选举相结合的制度。王室家族的男性成员可以作为候选人。这样做是为了确保选出一位骁勇善战的君主；德意志部落的子民不愿拥立一个庸才。

The German kings were the only kings in Europe who were elected. The practice of the Germans before they came into the Roman Empire was to run a mixed system of inheritance and election. There was a royal family whose male members would be the candidates for election. This was to ensure that a good warrior was chosen to be king; the German tribesmen did not want to be saddled with a dud.

在法国，很长一段时间里，所有国王都生出了能干的儿子，因此继承权逐渐成为唯一的手段。决定谁将成为法国国王。但在德国，国王们并不擅长诞下优秀的继承人，因此选举制度得以保留，并在德国国王经常成为神圣罗马帝国皇帝时得到进一步强化。皇帝对整个基督教世界拥有绝对的统治权，而选举制度确保了理论上任何基督教王子都有可能被选为皇帝。但实际上，几乎总是德国王子当选。起初，选帝侯众多，他们大多是地方强人，例如大主教和公爵；最终，只有七位拥有“选帝侯”的头衔。

It happened that in France for a long time all the kings produced able sons and so gradually inheritance became the sole means of determining who was going to be the French king. But in Germany the kings were not so adept at producing good heirs so the system of election was maintained and continued more strongly when the German king regularly became the Holy Roman emperor. The emperor had general oversight of all Christendom and election ensured that theoretically any Christian prince could be chosen for the job. In practice it was nearly always a German prince who was chosen. There were at first numerous electors, local strongmen like archbishops and dukes; eventually there were just seven who bore the name ‘elector’.

这位德国国王/皇帝像其他君主一样，竭力压制地方强人，其中一些人还是他的选帝侯。由于皇帝必须讨好选帝侯才能获得王位，他有时实际上是在让渡权力，而不是从他们手中夺取权力。情况更加复杂，因为除了地方权力斗争之外，几个世纪以来，皇帝还与一位在权力和威望上与他匹敌的人物——教皇——进行着斗争。

The German king/emperor struggled like kings everywhere to exert his power over local strongmen, some of whom were his electors. Since the emperor had to curry favour with the electors to win his post, he was sometimes yielding power rather than claiming it from them. The situation was even more complicated because, as well as the local struggles for control, the emperor for centuries was involved in a battle with a figure who rivalled him in power and prestige: the pope.

教皇和皇帝曾相互扶持，共同巩固彼此的权力。皇帝保护教皇，尤其重视保护教皇的领土。他们有时会干预罗马事务，以确保圣彼得宝座上坐着的是一位虔诚的教皇，而不是某个冒险家。教皇则通过为皇帝加冕并授予其“罗马皇帝”的称号，巩固了皇帝的权力。但从十一世纪开始，教皇和皇帝的关系开始恶化，因为教皇开始坚持教会应由罗马统一管理，国王和诸侯不应干预教会事务。

Pope and emperor had helped build up the power of each other. The emperors had protected the papacy, most importantly by protecting the papal territories. On occasions they had intervened in Rome to ensure that there was a pious pope and not some adventurer in the chair of Saint Peter. The popes had built up the power of the emperors by crowning them and giving them their title, Roman Emperor. But from the eleventh century the two fell out because popes began to insist that the church should be run from Rome and kings and princes should not meddle in its affairs.

天主教会是中世纪伟大的国际机构，但它始终受到削弱，因为国王和地方权贵都想控制各自领地内的主教人选。这不仅仅是为了在教会事务中拥有发言权；主教们掌管着许多职位——神父和教会官员——并且控制着教会赖以生存的大片土地。有时，教会拥有三分之一的土地；在德国，这一比例几乎达到一半。那些掌握世俗权力的人都想影响主教们如何行使他们巨大的权力。

The Catholic church was the great international institution of the Middle Ages, but it was always being undermined because kings and local powerbrokers wanted to control who became bishops in their own territory. This was not simply so they would have a voice in church affairs; the bishops had many jobs in their gift—priests and office-holders in the church—and they controlled large portions of land from which the church derived its income. Sometimes a third of the land was in the church’s hands; in Germany it was almost half. Those with secular authority wanted to influence how the bishops wielded their enormous power.

当我们说教会是一个国际性组织时，不妨这样想。丰田汽车公司总部位于东京，主要生产汽车。假设在澳大利亚，其首席执行官由总理任命，工厂经理由当地市长任命。名义上，工厂经理和首席执行官效忠于东京，但实际上，由于他们是由总理和市长任命的，他们自然会时刻提防着，以免得罪总理和市长。而市长和总理可能根本不懂汽车，他们会把这些职位交给本周需要讨好的人。中世纪的教会也是如此：它被地方权贵和欧洲君主不断削弱、侵蚀和掠夺。

When we say the church was an international body, think of it in this way. Toyota, which is run from Tokyo, is in the business of making motor cars. Say, in Australia, its chief executive was appointed by the prime minister and the plant manager was appointed by the local mayor. Officially the plant manager and the chief executive owe their allegiance to Tokyo, but of course in practice, since they have been appointed by the prime minister and the mayor, they will always be looking over their shoulder to see that they don’t displease them. And the mayor and the prime minister might not have selected people who know anything about cars; they will give these jobs to the people they need to please this week. This is what the medieval church was like: it had been undermined, white-anted and plundered by local powerbrokers and the monarchs of Europe.

想要打破所有这些既定安排，并将权力更牢固地重新集中到罗马的教皇是格里高利七世，他于1073年登基。他宣布今后将任命主教。皇帝亨利四世回应说他将继续这样做。皇帝立场坚定，于是教皇将他逐出教会，也就是把他逐出了教会。皇帝再也不能参加弥撒或任何教会提供的服务。这对于教皇来说一直是一件非常有力的武器，因为一旦将一位国王逐出教会，就等于告诉其领土内的人民，他们不必再服从他。在这种情况下，那些一直想摆脱皇帝控制的德国公爵和诸侯们欣喜若狂地发现皇帝已被逐出教会，可以不再受其约束。

The pope who wanted to upset all those cosy arrangements and bring authority more firmly back to Rome was Gregory VII, who became pope in 1073. He declared that he would in future appoint bishops. The emperor Henry IV replied that he would continue to do so. The emperor stood firm, so the pope excommunicated him; that is, he expelled him from the church. The emperor was no longer able to take mass or to have any of the services that the church provided. This was always a very powerful weapon for popes because having excommunicated a king, they told the people in his territories that they did not have to obey him. In this case, German dukes and princes, who always wanted to escape from the emperor’s control, were delighted to find that he was excommunicated and could be ignored.

亨利四世随后在冬季翻越阿尔卑斯山，在意大利北部卡诺萨的一座城堡里找到了教皇。他在雪地里等候了两三天，恳求教皇接见他。他脱去了所有华丽的服饰，只穿着朴素的衣服。最终，教皇心软了，皇帝跪在教皇面前请求宽恕。教皇解除了对亨利的绝罚，这令德意志诸侯极为恼怒。这当然令亨利颜面尽失，但同时也是一招高明的计策。对于一位基督教教皇来说，拒绝宽恕是极其困难的。皇帝并没有完全放弃自己的地位。这场争端持续了数年，最终达成了一项妥协。皇帝被允许保留一定的影响力。主教由教皇挑选，但教皇本人会授予他们权杖和正式长袍。

Henry IV then crossed the Alps in winter and found the pope in a castle at Canossa in northern Italy. He waited outside for two or three days in the snow, begging the pope to see him. He had cast off all his royal regalia; he was dressed in humble clothes. Finally the pope relented and the emperor knelt before him and asked for forgiveness. The pope lifted the excommunication, to the great annoyance of the German princes. This was very humbling for Henry, of course, but it was also quite a clever ploy. It was very hard for a Christian pope to refuse to grant forgiveness. The emperor did not completely abandon his position. The dispute dragged on for years and finally there was a compromise. The emperor was allowed to have some influence in choosing bishops but it was to be the pope who actually gave them their staff of office and their official robes.

教皇与皇帝之间的这些斗争持续了很长时间。它们确实是实实在在的战争。教皇向皇帝宣战。你可能会问，教皇是如何发动战争的？他本身就是一位君主；他拥有自己的领地，从中征税，然后用这些税款雇佣士兵。他会四处寻找盟友。有时，教皇会与不愿臣服于皇帝的德意志诸侯结盟，从而在皇帝的后方开辟一条战线。中世纪时期，意大利北部城镇成为欧洲最富有的城镇，它们不愿臣服于皇帝，因为皇帝的统治范围远及南方。有时，这些城镇会与教皇结盟，共同对抗皇帝。但它们也常常两面讨好，根据自身利益随时改变立场。

These battles continued between popes and emperors for a long time. They were literally battles. The pope went to war against the emperor. You might ask, how does the pope carry on a war? He is a monarch in his own right; he has his own territories from which he collects taxes which he then uses to hire soldiers. He looks around for allies wherever he can find them. Sometimes the pope made an alliance with the German princes who did not want to be subject to the emperor and opened a front, as it were, in the emperor’s rear. The towns in northern Italy, which in the Middle Ages became the richest towns in Europe, did not like being subject to the emperor, whose realm extended this far south. Sometimes the towns allied themselves with the pope to fight off the emperor. Often they played both sides, switching allegiance as was most advantageous.

文艺复兴时期的艺术家切利尼在他的自传中对教皇的战士形象进行了精彩的描述。和许多文艺复兴时期的人物一样，切利尼多才多艺，不仅是一位技艺精湛的金匠，也精通兵器。当敌人进攻罗马时，他与教皇一同站在城墙上，指挥炮击。教皇的敌人中有一位西班牙老军官，他曾为教皇效力，如今却倒戈相向。他离得很远，完全没意识到自己在射程之内。他姿态轻松，佩剑斜挎在身前。切利尼下令开炮。炮弹偏离了预定轨道，击中了军官的剑，将剑向后推去，将他拦腰斩断。切利尼对此感到非常懊悔：他亲手杀死了一个人，而这个人甚至来不及做好赴死的准备。他跪在教皇面前请求赦免。但教皇却对他的行为感到欣喜。他说：“是的，我原谅你；我原谅你为教会所犯下的所有杀人罪行。”

The pope as warrior is wonderfully described by the Renaissance artist Cellini in his autobiography. Like many Renaissance men, Cellini was multi-talented, not only a superb goldsmith but also good with weaponry. When an enemy was attacking Rome, he was on the battlements with the pope, giving instructions about the firing of the cannon. Among the pope’s enemies was an old Spanish officer who had formerly fought for the pope but was now on the other side. He was a long way off, not thinking he was in range at all. He was standing in a very relaxed way with his sword slung in front of him. Cellini gave the order for the cannon to fire. It was a freakish shot; the ball hit the officer’s sword, which it pushed back, cutting him in half. Cellini was very distressed at this: killing a man before he had time to prepare himself for death. He knelt before the pope to ask for absolution. But the pope was delighted at his deed. He said, ‘Yes, I forgive you; I forgive you all the homicides you commit in the service of the church.’

这是一尊圣彼得的雕像，据说是罗马的第一任主教，他身着中世纪教皇的服饰，披着华丽的斗篷，头戴高冠。他并没有忘记自己卑微的渔夫出身：他的一只脚是光着的。中世纪的大多数人不会对这种盛装感到冒犯。教皇理应是一位伟大的君主；他他应该享有皇室的一切礼仪，因为他是教会的领袖，必须以平等的身份与其他君主会面。

Here is a sculpture of Saint Peter, the supposed first Bishop of Rome, dressed as a medieval pope, with gorgeous cloak and great crown. He has not forgotten his humble origins as a fisherman: one of his feet is bare. Most people in medieval times would not have been offended at this grandeur. The pope should be a great prince; he should have all the trappings of royalty because he was the head of the church and had to meet other monarchs as an equal.

教皇与皇帝的斗争陷入僵局，双方从未取得彻底的胜利。他们的争端如同老板与工人之间的冲突。罢工和解雇的威胁时有发生，往往激烈而残酷，但人们知道最终总会达成和解，老板和工人也永远存在。教皇与皇帝斗争的意义在于，教皇从未自称皇帝，皇帝也从未自称教皇。他们都承认对方的存在；他们争论的是彼此的权力大小。这是西欧的一个重要特征，也是它与东方的拜占庭帝国的显著区别。在君士坦丁堡，皇帝不仅是帝国世俗事务的统治者，也是教会的统治者。虽然也有宗主教，但宗主教是由皇帝任命并受其控制的。而在西方，教会和国家是分离的，各自拥有独立的权力。这始终是君主行使普世权力的一大障碍。

Pope and emperor fought each other to a standstill. They never had a complete victory, one or the other. Their dispute was like conflict between bosses and workers. There are strikes and threats of sacking, often intense and bitter, but you know there will always be a settlement and that there will always be bosses and workers. The significance of the pope–emperor struggle is that the pope never claimed to be emperor and the emperor never claimed to be pope. They both acknowledged that the other should exist; they were arguing about their relative powers. This is a very important characteristic of western Europe, which distinguishes it from the Byzantine Empire in the east. The practice in Constantinople was that the emperor was not only the ruler of the civil affairs of his empire but also of the church. There was a patriarch, but the patriarch was appointed by the emperor and under his control. In the west the two authorities of church and state were separate and had independent authority. This was a continuing bar to any universal claims by kings.

皇帝与教皇之间长期斗争的结果是双方都削弱了对方的实力。这种长期斗争对中央政权的影响是巨大的。从北部的德国到南部的意大利，欧洲在地图上清晰可见。这里是由众多小邦、公国和城市交织而成的版图。在西部，英格兰、法国和西班牙如今已统一为国。公爵和伯爵们被纳入统治之下，国王的权力遍及整个领土。1066年，威廉公爵征服英格兰，极大地促进了这一进程。他武力夺取了全国的控制权，建立了比欧洲大陆更为强大的君主制。在中欧，两大强权——皇帝和教皇——一直在争夺权力，为了相互对抗而互相出卖地方势力。结果是，较小的国家不但没有失去权力，反而获得了权力。它们成为自治的实体，几乎不受宗主国的影响。正是在这里，发生了对现代（1400年后）欧洲影响深远的两大变革：文艺复兴和宗教改革。它们为何发生难以解答，但它们为何会在这里发生则相对容易理解。

The effect of the long-term struggle between emperor and pope was that they weakened each other. The long-term effect on central Europe, running from Germany in the north to Italy in the south, can be seen on the map. Here is a patchwork of small states, principalities and cities. In the west, England, France and Spain have now emerged as unified countries. Dukes and counts have been brought under control and the king’s writ runs right through his territory. In England this was much helped by its conquest in 1066 by Duke William who, in seizing control of all parts of the country by force, established a stronger monarchy than in mainland Europe. In central Europe two great powers—emperor and pope—had been struggling, trading away their local authority in order to fight each other. The result was that the smaller units gained power rather than lost it. They were self-governing bodies only marginally affected by their overlords. It was here that two transforming developments of modern (post-1400) Europe occurred: the Renaissance and the Reformation. Why they occurred is a hard question to answer; why they could occur here is easier.

文艺复兴起源于意大利北部城市，这些城市……意大利城邦如同古希腊时期那样，在军事和文化上都存在着竞争关系：它们彼此征战，也竞相在艺术成就上超越对方。由于它们既是城邦又是国家，因此汇聚了众多才华横溢的人才。与欧洲其他地区的贵族不同，意大利贵族并不将他们的庄园视为天然的居所；他们也居住在城市中。城市生活的丰富多彩和蓬勃生机贯穿了整个社会。正是这些地方，孕育并实现了重现古代世界的宏伟蓝图。

The northern cities of Italy, where the Renaissance began, were small city-states such as had existed in classical Greece. The Italian cities were rivals, militarily and culturally: they went to war with each other and they wanted to outdo each other with the splendour of their art. Because they were states as well as cities, they concentrated many talented people in one place. The nobility, unlike those in the rest of Europe, did not regard their landed estates as their natural home; they lived in the cities as well. The variety and vitality of city life characterised whole societies. These were the places which could conceive and carry out the project of recreating the ancient world.

路德的宗教改革之所以在德国生根发芽并蓬勃发展，是因为世俗权力分散。镇压路德的异端邪说是皇帝的职责，但他行动迟缓。皇帝允许路德安全抵达，接受皇帝和德国诸侯的审问。路德拒绝放弃异端邪说后，皇帝宣布他是异端，任何人不得支持他，并下令逮捕他。他的命令立即生效。萨克森选帝侯腓特烈对路德感到恼怒，他逮捕了路德并将他藏匿起来。路德被藏匿在腓特烈城堡期间，开始将《圣经》翻译成德语。腓特烈和其他支持路德的德意志诸侯看到了掌控教会及其领地的益处。他们削弱了教皇和皇帝的权力，从而扩大了自己的影响力——路德教由此诞生。

Luther’s Reformation took root and f lourished in Germany because secular power was dispersed. It was the duty of the emperor to put down Luther’s heresy and rather belatedly he attempted to do so. Luther was given safe passage to come before him and the princes of Germany to be examined. When Luther refused to recant, the emperor declared that he was a heretic, that no-one should support him and that he should be arrested. His orders were immediately frustrated by Frederick the Elector of Saxony, who seized Luther and took him into hiding. It was while Luther was hidden in his castle that he began to translate the Bible into German. Frederick and the other German princes who supported Luther saw the advantage of putting themselves in charge of the church and its lands. They increased their own power at the expense of pope and emperor—and so Lutheranism was born.

德国和意大利直到十九世纪下半叶才结束分裂状态。它们统一较晚，也比那些更早统一的国家更容易受到浪漫主义运动所倡导的强烈民族主义的影响。到了二十世纪，这两个国家将民族主义发展到了最具侵略性和排他性的形式，即法西斯主义。

Germany and Italy remained divided until the second half of the nineteenth century. They came late to national unity and were more prone than the older, unified states to take up the intense nationalism fostered by the Romantic movement. In the twentieth century they were the two states that adopted nationalism in its most aggressive and exclusionist form, which goes under the name of fascism.

尽管皇帝之位本身权力有限，神圣罗马帝国却得以延续。自中世纪晚期以来，神圣罗马帝国的皇帝之位始终由一个家族选出，那就是哈布斯堡王朝——欧洲最伟大的统治王朝之一。他们为西班牙、奥地利、意大利部分地区以及低地国家输送君主。对他们而言，皇帝之位提升了他们的威望；他们的权力则源于各自的王国。启蒙运动的领袖伏尔泰嘲讽神圣罗马帝国既不神圣，也不罗马，更谈不上帝国，这固然不假，但它的延续始终带有某种魔幻色彩，以一种奇特的形式保留着其名称和理念。最终，一位新帝国的统治者终结了旧帝国的奇异延续。他就是拿破仑·波拿巴，在法国大革命爆发十年后的1799年，他掌控了法国。

Though in itself the position of emperor carried little power, the Holy Roman Empire survived. From the late Middle Ages one family always provided the person who was elected Holy Roman emperor. This was the Hapsburgs, one of the great ruling dynasties of Europe. They supplied monarchs for Spain, Austria, parts of Italy and the Low Countries. To them, holding the position of emperor added to their prestige; their power came from their own kingdoms. Voltaire, the guru of the Enlightenment, mocked the Holy Roman Empire as neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, which was true enough, but its survival was always somewhat magical, carrying a name and an idea in a very odd form. It took the head of a new empire to abolish this strange survival of an old one. He was Napoleon Bonaparte, who took charge of France in 1799, ten years after the revolution began.

革命伊始，法国高呼自由、平等、博爱；四年之内，雅各宾派独裁政权建立，以断头台处决人民；罗伯斯庇尔即便在战争危机过后仍执意以同样的方式统治，最终被推翻并处决。温和的共和党人试图稳定革命局势，将平民百姓和拥护复辟君主制的势力排除在外，后者拥有庞大且日益增长的追随者。政府为了生存不得不对这两股势力动用武力，最终丧失了所有公信力。这给了波拿巴机会。他曾在法国反抗欧洲君主制列强的革命战争中以将军的身份声名鹊起。他是启蒙运动的信徒，信奉革命的原则，唯独不认同人民自治的权利。自1789年以来，法国在这方面彻底失败，因此波拿巴的策略极具吸引力。他是最具魅力的独裁者。他不希望任何群体享有特权；所有公民都应被平等对待；所有儿童都应有机会接受国家提供的教育；所有职位都应向有能力的人开放。他将众多才华横溢的人士招入麾下，完全不顾他们在革命期间扮演的角色，无论是保皇派还是共和派，是雅各宾恐怖统治的支持者还是反对者。他赋予他们的任务是为法国建立一个有序、理性的政府体系。

The revolution began by proclaiming liberty, equality and fraternity; within four years there was a Jacobin dictatorship ruling by the guillotine; when Robespierre looked like continuing to rule in the same way, even though the war crisis was passed, he was overthrown and executed. Moderate republicans then tried to stabilise the revolution, to keep out the common people and the supporters of a return to monarchy, who had a large and growing following. The government had to use force against both these opponents to survive and lost all credibility. This gave Bonaparte his chance. He had made his name as a general in the revolutionary wars that France had waged against the monarchical powers of Europe. He was a son of the Enlightenment, a believer in the principles of the revolution, except in the right of the people to govern themselves. Since the French had most signally failed at that task since 1789, Bonaparte’s approach was very attractive. He was the most seductive of dictators. He wanted no group to enjoy special privileges; all citizens were to be treated as equals; all children were to have the chance of education provided by the state; all positions were to be open to people of ability. He gathered men of great talent into his government, ignoring altogether what part they had played during the revolution, whether as monarchists or republicans, supporters of the Jacobin terror or its opponents. He gave them the task of giving France an orderly, rational system of government.

之所以不把法国君主的“专制”看得太重，原因有很多，其中之一是，尽管他们巩固了自己的权力，但他们统治的仍然是一个支离破碎、而非统一的国家。当时存在着不同的法律和行政体系，以及数不胜数的特权、豁免和让步，所有这些都是君主为了确保法国获得新的领土和新的效忠对象而做出的。革命者们摒弃了这一切；他们的目标是建立一个统一的国家。但在内战造成的混乱中，他们在建立新政权方面进展甚微。这正是拿破仑及其专家小组的任务。他们最伟大的成就是制定了《民法典》，这部法典仿照了查士丁尼大帝的《法典》，是一部涵盖所有法律问题的单一法典。

One reason among several for not giving too much weight to the ‘absolutism’ of the French monarchs was that, although they had built up their own power, they still ruled over a patchwork rather than a unified state. There were different systems of law and administration and a myriad of special privileges, exemptions and concessions, all of which the monarch had made to secure new areas to France and new allegiance to himself. The revolutionaries swept all this aside; their aim was a unified nation. But during the chaos created by fighting each other, they did not get far in establishing a new regime. That was the task Napoleon set himself and his panel of experts. Their greatest work was the development of the Civil Code, an imitation of the great code of Emperor Justinian, a single document in which the law on every subject was laid down.

罗马的例子对拿破仑至关重要。起初他自称执政官，后来称帝；但如同奥古斯都一样，他并非意在用这个头衔抹杀法国的共和政体。如同罗马人一样，他计划建立一个幅员辽阔的帝国，以共和法国的原则为基础，建立一个公正有序的社会。他延续了早期革命者开启的与欧洲列强的战争，并取得了惊人的胜利。他扩张了法国的疆域，并在法国之外重塑了公国和王国，让他的兄弟们掌管这些国家。他横扫整个欧洲大陆，废除了中世纪的权利、特权和种种弊端，建立了新的理性秩序。当欧洲列强最终合作击败拿破仑时，他的许多政策已无法挽回。在南大西洋圣赫勒拿岛流放期间，最令他欣慰的是，他的《拿破仑法典》在欧洲各地得以流传——至今仍然有效。而神圣罗马帝国则未能幸免于难。帝国。拿破仑于 1806 年废除了帝国，当时他将德国的几个小邦国重新组合成莱茵邦联。

The Roman example was important to Napoleon. At first he called himself Consul, then Emperor; but like Augustus, he did not mean by that title to obliterate the republican status of France. Like the Romans, he planned to create an extensive empire where the principles of republican France would be the basis for a just and orderly society. He continued the wars with the great powers of Europe that the early revolutionaries had begun and won amazing victories. He extended the boundaries of France and beyond France he reshaped principalities and kingdoms and put his brothers in charge of them. Right across the continent he swept away medieval rights, privileges and anomalies and established his new rational order. When the powers of Europe finally managed to co-operate for long enough to defeat Napoleon, much of his work could not be undone. What pleased him most, reflecting on his life in exile on Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, was the survival throughout Europe of his Napoleonic Code—which still survives. What did not survive was the Holy Roman Empire. Napoleon abolished it in 1806 when he regrouped several small states in Germany into the Confederation of the Rhine.

拿破仑不信神，他深信机遇和命运。但他意识到人们对信仰的执着，以及宗教在维护道德和秩序方面的作用。早期的革命者作为启蒙运动的产物，对有组织的宗教缺乏这种尊重。没有什么比革命对天主教会的攻击更能分裂法国社会，更能疏远民众对革命的热情。革命者占领了教会土地，建立了一个与天主教会相抗衡的国教，教皇拒绝承认。拿破仑决心结束由此造成的痛苦和分裂。他与教皇达成了一项协议——《教务专约》，承认天主教是绝大多数法国人的信仰。但并非所有法国人都信奉天主教，拿破仑也拒绝接受教皇要求取消宗教自由的请求，因为宗教自由允许新教徒和其他宗教信徒不受阻碍地信奉自己的宗教。关于主教的任命，《协约》恢复了一项古老的做法：国家提名主教，教皇为其授职。

Napoleon was a non-believer, in god that is; he was a great believer in chance and destiny. But he realised how firmly people were attached to their faith and how useful religion was in maintaining morality and good order. The early revolutionaries, as children of the Enlightenment, did not have this respect for organised religion. Nothing did more to divide French society and alienate people from the revolution than its attack on the Catholic church. The revolutionaries seized church land and set up a rival national church, which the pope refused to recognise. Napoleon was determined to end the bitterness and divisiveness that this had caused. He reached an agreement with the pope, a Concordat, which acknowledged that the Catholic faith was the religion of the great majority of the French people. Not all the French people, and Napoleon would not agree to the pope’s demand to withdraw freedom of religion, which allowed Protestants and others to practise their faith without impediment. On the appointment of bishops the Concordat re-instated an old practice: the state would nominate bishops and the pope would invest them.

教皇在巴黎圣母院见证了拿破仑加冕为帝的仪式。他为拿破仑及其皇后约瑟芬涂油，并为皇室的象征物——宝球、正义之手、宝剑和权杖——祈福。但最终，王冠是由拿破仑亲自戴上的。这顶王冠仿照教皇曾加冕于查理曼大帝的王冠，轻盈而开放，如同罗马人授予胜利者的月桂花环。

The pope was present in Notre Dame cathedral when Napoleon was crowned as emperor. He anointed Napoleon and his empress, Josephine; he blessed the imperial regalia: orb, hand of justice, sword and sceptre. But Napoleon himself put the crown on his head. It was a replica of the crown the pope had placed on Charlemagne, a light, open crown, like the laurel wreath that Romans gave to their victors.

T罗马帝国时期有两种通用语言：西部的拉丁语和东部的希腊语。希腊语虽然形式有所变化，但至今仍在使用——在希腊本土、地中海东部地区以及更广泛的希腊侨民社区中都有人使用。如今，世界上没有任何一个地区以拉丁语为通用语言。拉丁语常被描述为一种死语言；如果真是如此，那它可真是一具异常鲜活的“尸体”。

THERE WERE TWO UNIVERSAL languages in the Roman Empire: Latin in the west and Greek in the east. Greek, though in a somewhat different form, is still spoken—in Greece itself and by Greeks settled around the eastern Mediterranean and in the wider Greek diaspora. No territory on earth now has Latin as its common language. Latin is regularly described as a dead language; if that is so, it has been an unusually lively corpse.

拉丁语最初仅在罗马城及其周边一小片地区使用。随着罗马统治的扩张，拉丁语也随之传播开来，数百年后，它通行于整个西罗马帝国。拉丁语的西部和希腊语的东部之间的分界线穿过如今的塞尔维亚。因此，拉丁语成为巴尔干半岛大部分地区、意大利、法国和西班牙的通用语言，但并非不列颠的通用语言。尽管罗马人征服了不列颠，但不列颠人的凯尔特语仍然保留了下来。在西方的其他地区，当地语言逐渐消失，人们开始使用拉丁语。

Latin was at first spoken only by the people in Rome and the small tract of country around Rome. It expanded as Roman rule expanded and after hundreds of years it was being spoken throughout the western empire. The division between the Latin west and the Greek east ran through what is now Serbia. So Latin became the language of a good part of the Balkans, all of Italy, France and Spain, but not of Britain. Though the Romans went to Britain, the Celtic language of the Britons survived. Everywhere else in the west the local languages gradually disappeared and the people took up Latin.

罗马帝国明智地没有制定语言政策，因为这是最自相矛盾的公共政策。压制一种语言并代之以另一种语言是极其困难的。古代世界没有人会考虑这样做。罗马是一个包容性的帝国，它允许被征服地区的统治者继续担任领导职务，并成为罗马精英的一部分，成为将军甚至皇帝。最终在公元212年，帝国境内的所有民族都被宣布为公民，从而受到法律的保护。因此，罗马帝国在三四百年后，地方语言逐渐消失，拉丁语成为主流语言，这本身就是对罗马帝国的致敬。在行政、法律、军队、贸易方面，它最终取得了一场悄无声息的胜利。

Rome itself sensibly did not have a language policy, which is the most self-defeating act of public policy. It is extremely hard to suppress a language and install another in its place. No-one in the ancient world would have contemplated it. Rome was an inclusive empire in that it allowed the leaders of the societies it had conquered to remain leaders and to become part of the Roman elite, to become generals and even emperors. Eventually in 212, all peoples in the empire were declared to be citizens and hence protected by the law. So it is a tribute to the Roman Empire that after three or four hundred years, the local languages disappeared. Latin was the language of administration, of law, of the army, of trade, and it eventually had a quiet victory.

在帝国边远地区使用的拉丁语并非学者、律师和政治家所使用的正式拉丁语，也不是你在学校或大学里学习的那种拉丁语。它是士兵、地方官员和商人使用的拉丁语，甚至在帝国解体之前就存在地域差异。意大利使用的拉丁语很可能与法国使用的拉丁语不同。帝国解体后，拉丁语演变成许多独立的语言，这些语言被称为罗曼语族；也就是说，这些语言带有罗马人的风格，正如罗马式建筑源于罗马建筑形式一样。

The Latin spoken in the further reaches of the empire was not formal Latin, the Latin of scholars, lawyers and politicians, the Latin you learn if you learn Latin at school or university. It was the Latin spoken by soldiers, local administrators and traders, and even before the empire broke up there were regional variations. The Latin being spoken in Italy could well have been different from the Latin spoken in France. Once the empire broke up, Latin evolved into a number of separate languages, which are known as Romance languages; that is, languages in the manner of the Romans, just as Romanesque architecture is descended from Roman forms of architecture.

主要的罗曼语族语言是法语、意大利语和西班牙语。看看每种语言中“马”这个词：法语是cheval，西班牙语是caballo，意大利语是cavallo。这里没有出现拉丁语中“马”这个词equus的痕迹。英语中有horse，它源自德语，但我们也有equestrian，指骑马者或与马有关的事物，它也源自equus。通常，我们语言中的拉丁语词汇更加正式。horse衍生出了horsy ；我们可以说某人是horsy person，但更礼貌的说法是equestrian或对马术活动感兴趣的人。拉丁语中有一个俚语词caballus来指马，类似于gee-gee或nag，罗曼语族中表示马的词就是由此而来：法语cheval ，西班牙语caballo ，意大利语cavallo。在这种情况下，西班牙语和意大利语的拼写形式比法语更接近原文。

The chief Romance languages are French, Italian and Spanish. Consider the word for horse in each: in French it is cheval, in Spanish caballo, in Italian cavallo. There is no sign here of the Latin word for horse, which was equus. In English we have horse, which comes from the German, but we also have equestrian, a horse rider or matters to do with horses, which comes from equus. Often the Latin words in our language are more formal words. From horse we have horsy; we might say someone is a horsy person, but it is more polite to say an equestrian or someone interested in equestrian events. In Latin there was a slangy word for a horse, caballus, something like gee-gee or a nag, and it is from that word that the Romance words for horse come: cheval (French), caballo (Spanish), cavallo (Italian). The Spanish and Italian forms in this case are much closer to the original than the French.

法国人对自己的语言非常谨慎。法兰西学院会仔细斟酌哪些英语词汇可以纳入法语：比如“t-shirt”（衬衫）或“bulldozer”（推土机）是否可以接受？而且，根据“t-shirt”是阳性还是阴性（英语在这方面并不在意），应该写成“la t-shirt”还是“le t- shirt”？最好不要向法国人指出，他们所保护的语言其实是拉丁语的一种变体。

The French are very careful about their language. The French Academy deliberates on what English words they will allow into the language: is t-shirt or bulldozer acceptable? And will it be la t-shirt or le t-shirt, depending on whether t-shirt is to be masculine or feminine (something which English does not bother with)? It would not be wise to point out to the French that the language they are protecting is a debased form of Latin.

拉丁语是一种高度屈折变化的语言；也就是说，一个词在句子中的含义取决于词尾的变化（词形变化）。拉丁语中“年”的词是annus（由此衍生出annually ，比annually略显正式）。拉丁语中“主人”或“领主”的词是 annus。拉丁语中，“主”的意思是“公元”。如果我们想用拉丁语表达“主的年份”，那么“Annus”和“dominus”的词尾会变成“anno domini”。“Anno”的意思是“在这一年”，“domini”的意思是“主的”。公元纪年法中，以耶稣基督的诞生为起点的缩写“AD”就来源于“anno domini”。由于拉丁语是一种屈折语，它不需要像“ in”或“ of”这样的词。我们六个词“主的年份”只需要两个词“ anno domini” ，这也是拉丁语适合用作格言的原因之一——因为它非常简洁。主要词语之间没有繁琐的赘词。拉丁语也不需要定冠词“the”或不定冠词“an”。“Annus”的意思是“这一年”或“一年”。

Latin is a highly inflected language; that is, the meaning a word has in a sentence depends on the ending of the word (its inflection). The Latin word for year is annus (from which we get annually, slightly more formal than yearly). The Latin word for master or lord is dominus. If we want to say in Latin in the year of our lord the endings of annus and dominus change to anno domini. Anno means in the year; domini means of the lord. It is from anno domini that we get the abbreviation AD in calendars that count years from the birth of Jesus Christ. Because it is an inflected language, Latin does not have to call on words like in or of. There are just two words, anno domini, for our six words, in the year of the lord, which is one reason why Latin is good for mottos—because it is so succinct. You do not have little fussy words in between the main words. Nor does Latin need a definite article the or an indefinite article an. Annus means the year or a year.

拉丁语句子中词序并不重要。Domini anno仍然表示“主的年份”。在英语中，如果改变词序，意思就会改变，甚至完全失去意义：In the lord of the year或of the lord in the year。

The order of the words in a Latin sentence does not matter. Domini anno still means in the year of the lord. In English if you switch word order you change the meaning or get no meaning: In the lord of the year or of the lord in the year.

拉丁语确实有表示“在……之中”、“在……处”和“的”的词，可以用来强调。但由于当时说拉丁语的人对拉丁语的语法规则并不十分了解，他们越来越多地使用表示“在……之中” 、“在……处”和“的”的词，而忽略了词尾的变化。拉丁语逐渐从一种词尾会变化的语言演变为一种经常使用介词（如“在……之中” 、 “在……处”、“的”）而词形保持不变的语言。这就解释了为什么罗曼语族的名词不发生词形变化，因此词序至关重要。

Latin did have words for in, at and of, which you could use for emphasis. But as Latin was spoken by people who were not quite clear about all the rules, they would increasingly use the words for in, at and of and not worry about changing the word endings. Gradually Latin moved from a language where endings changed to one where prepositions—in, at, of—were regularly used and the word stayed the same. This explains why Romance languages do not inflect their nouns and hence word order is crucial.

拉丁语中没有“ the”这个词，但如果你想强调语气，可以说“I want to buy that apple”（我要买那个苹果）或“Give me that peach”（把那个桃子给我）。表示“that ”的词是ille或illa，取决于它前面的名词是阳性还是阴性。拉丁语的业余使用者越来越多地使用ille或illa，而且他们也并不在意词尾的变化。后来，法语将ille和illa缩写成le和la，这两个词必须放在每个名词前面。西班牙语中，缩写产生了el和la；意大利语中则产生了il和la。想想看，正是那些拉丁语业余使用者大声喊叫和指指点点，才使得罗曼语族拥有了定冠词。

In Latin there was no word for the but if you wanted to speak emphatically you could say ‘I want to buy that apple’ or ‘Give me that peach’. The word for that was ille or illa, depending whether the noun it preceded was masculine or feminine. The amateur speakers of Latin used ille or illa more and more and again didn’t worry about changing the word endings. Then ille and illa were shortened in French to become le and la, which have to be placed before every noun. In Spanish the shortening produced el and la; in Italian il and la. Think of all the shouting and pointing by the amateur Latin speakers that gave the Romance languages their definite article.

公元五世纪，日耳曼人入侵了如今的法国、西班牙和意大利，然而这些人却说着源自拉丁语的语言。这怎么可能呢？是时候看看欧洲的语言地图了。大多数语言都属于某个较大的语系，例如罗曼语族、日耳曼语族或斯拉夫语族。少数国家则比较特殊，它们的语言与其他任何语系都没有密切联系，例如希腊语、阿尔巴尼亚语、匈牙利语和芬兰语。

In the fifth century Germans invaded what is now France, Spain and Italy and yet these people speak a language derived from Latin. How can this be so? It is time to look at the language map of Europe. Most of the languages spoken are part of a larger language family, either Romance, Germanic or Slavonic. A few countries are loners that have a language not closely connected to any other. Such are the Greeks, the Albanians, the Hungarians and the Finns.

在西欧，北部以日耳曼语族为主，南部以罗曼语族为主。有两个国家语言混杂：比利时北部使用日耳曼语族语言，南部使用罗曼语族语言。瑞士北部使用日耳曼语族语言，南部两个角落则使用罗曼语族语言。除了这些较小的罗曼语族语言之外，我们现在还必须将葡萄牙语与三大语言（法语、西班牙语、意大利语）并列，而令人惊讶的是，在东欧还有罗马尼亚语。罗马尼亚位于多瑙河北岸，这条河通常是罗马帝国的边界。罗马人曾将他们的统治范围扩展到多瑙河北岸，形成一个巨大的凸出区域，持续了一百年之久。似乎接触拉丁语的时间并不足以使其成为罗马尼亚语的基础。这导致了一种说法，即罗马尼亚人最初居住在河的南岸，在那里他们长期接触拉丁语，后来才迁徙到北方——罗马尼亚人并不认同这种说法。

In western Europe, Germanic languages prevail in the north and Romance in the south. Two countries are mixed: Belgium has a Germanic language in the north and a Romance language in the south. In Switzerland a Germanic language is spoken in the north and in the two southern corners, Romance. In addition to these minor Romance languages we must now include Portuguese alongside the big three (French, Spanish, Italian) and, a surprise, in eastern Europe, Romanian. That country lies to the north of the River Danube, which was usually the border of the Roman Empire. The Romans extended their control north of the river in a great bulge for a hundred years but that would not seem a long enough exposure to Latin for it to have become the base for Romanian. This has led to the suggestion that the Romanians lived south of the river, where they had a long exposure to Latin, and later moved north, not a suggestion that the Romanians are happy with.

在中欧和东欧的大部分地区，语言是斯拉夫语：波兰、捷克、斯洛伐克、保加利亚和前南斯拉夫都使用斯拉夫语。这引出了斯拉夫人的历史。他们生活在日耳曼人之后，于公元六、七世纪入侵东罗马帝国，并在巴尔干半岛定居。一些斯拉夫人留在了从未被纳入帝国版图的地区，例如波兰、捷克和斯洛伐克。定居欧洲后，斯拉夫人逐渐皈依基督教：来自西部的波兰人皈依了罗马天主教；巴尔干半岛的大部分斯拉夫人则来自君士坦丁堡，因此皈依了希腊东正教。

In most of central and eastern Europe the languages are Slavonic: in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia. This introduces the Slavs, who lived beyond the Germans and who invaded the Eastern Roman Empire in the sixth and seventh centuries and settled in the Balkans. Some of the Slavs remained in areas that had never been part of the empire: Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. After they settled in Europe, the Slavs were Christianised: the Poles from the west, so they became Roman Catholic; most of the people in the Balkans from Constantinople, so they became Greek Orthodox.

拉丁语（及其罗曼语族分支）、希腊语、斯拉夫语和日耳曼语都源自同一个语言，这种语言被称为印欧语系。语言学家试图通过追溯其衍生语言的共性来构建印欧语系的一些组成部分。他们对印欧人的居住地存在争议——大约在东方的某个地方。他们有一个词表示“雪”；他们表示“海”的词似乎与内陆海有关。这种语言之所以被称为印欧语系，是因为印度的梵语和伊朗语也源自于它。

Latin (and its Romance offshoots), Greek, the Slavonic and Germanic languages are all descended from a common origin, a language that has been given the name Indo-European. Linguists attempt to construct some of its elements by working back from the commonalities in the languages it spawned. They argue about where the Indo-Europeans were located—somewhere to the east. They had a word for snow; their word for sea seemed to relate to an inland sea. The language is Indo-European because the Indian language Sanskrit and Iranian are also descended from it.

这种语言的发现或构建直到十八世纪才发生。在此之前，欧洲的语言研究一直假定所有语言都源自希伯来语，因为那是犹太人所说的语言，并由此推断它是人类始祖亚当和夏娃的语言。然而，希伯来语与欧洲语言截然不同——它并非源自印欧语系——因此，追溯希伯来语起源完全是一条死路。但在十八世纪启蒙运动时期，学者们得以摆脱圣经的框架，发展出新的理论。这一突破是由居住在印度的英国法官威廉·琼斯取得的。他注意到梵语和欧洲语言的基本词汇存在相似之处——这些词汇……用于表示数字、身体部位和家庭成员。以下是“兄弟”的说法：

The discovery or the construction of this language only happened in the eighteenth century. Until then the study of languages in Europe had assumed that they were all descended from Hebrew, because that was the language the Jews spoke and by implication it was the language of Adam and Eve, the first people. Hebrew is a different language altogether from European languages—it is not descended from Indo-European—and so the pursuit of Hebraic origins was a complete dead-end. But in the era of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, scholars could throw off the Biblical framework and develop new theories. The breakthrough was made by William Jones, an English judge resident in India. He noticed similarities in the basic vocabulary of Sanskrit and European languages—the words for numbers, parts of the body and family members. Here are the words for brother:

兄弟（英文）

Brother (English)

婆罗多（梵语）

Bhratar (Sanskrit)

Broeder（荷兰语）

Broeder (Dutch)

布鲁德（德语）

Bruder (German)

Phrater（希腊语）

Phrater (Greek)

布拉特（俄语）

Brat (Russian)

Brathair（爱尔兰语）

Brathair (Irish)

琼斯认为这些相似之处绝非偶然，并推测这些语言拥有一个已经不复存在的共同祖先。于是，印欧语系的重建工作开始了。

Jones judged that these similarities were more than accidental and surmised that these languages had a common ancestor that no longer existed. So the reconstruction of Indo-European began.

欧洲有两个国家的语言并非源自印欧语系。但这两种语言却有着密切的联系。它们的使用者分别来自亚洲，经历了两次不同的迁徙。芬兰人在史前时期就已抵达；而匈牙利人则是后来者，他们是九至十世纪的骑兵，与从海上劫掠而来的北欧人几乎同时期四处劫掠。后来，他们被劝说在多瑙河谷定居，并皈依了基督教。

Two European countries—Hungary and Finland—have languages that are not descended from Indo-European. The two languages are related. Their speakers arrived in two separate movements from Asia. The Finns arrived in prehistoric times; the Hungarians were latecomers, horsemen marauding widely in the ninth and tenth centuries at the same time as the Norsemen came plundering from the sea. They were persuaded to settle in the Danube Valley and they became Christian.

上一张地图展示了当前的语言分布情况。斯拉夫人和日耳曼人入侵之后，语言分布格局并没有太大变化。日耳曼人入侵罗马帝国导致语言分布发生了一些变化，但正如我们所见，拉丁语的罗曼语形式在法国、意大利和西班牙得以保留。下一张地图更清晰地展示了日耳曼语族和罗曼语族之间的现代分界线，从中可以看出这种变化的程度。罗马帝国的边界是莱茵河。这张地图显示的是日耳曼语族语言跨越莱茵河的传播范围。正如你所看到的，传播范围并不大。

The previous map displays the language distribution at present. It would not have looked very different immediately after the Slav and German invasions. The German invasion of the Roman Empire led to some change in language distribution but, as we have seen, Latin in its Romance form survived in France, Italy and Spain. The extent of the change can be seen on the next map, which more closely displays the present-day boundary between Germanic and Romance languages. The boundary of the Roman Empire was the Rhine river. What the map displays is how far across the Rhine the Germanic languages advanced. Not very far, as you see.

这条新的语言分界线为何会呈现出现在的样子，着实令人费解。在比利时，划分不同语言群体的分界线位于开阔的乡村地带。这里没有自然景观，没有河流，也没有山脉。假设你沿着一条笔直的道路行驶，右侧的村庄讲罗曼语族语言（瓦隆语），左侧的村庄讲日耳曼语族语言（弗拉芒语）。这条语言分界线并非……1500年间发生了变化。有说法认为，当时可能存在一条东西走向的罗马防线，作为一道屏障，阻止已经渡过莱茵河的日耳曼人继续向东推进。这条防线或许能阻止他们，但显然日耳曼人最终绕过了它，继续向东推进。

It is a puzzle to know why the new language boundary took the form it did. In Belgium the line that divides the language groups is in open countryside. There are no natural features, a river or a mountain range. You are driving along a straight road; the village to your right will speak a Romance language (Walloon) and the village to your left a Germanic language (Flemish). This language boundary has not changed in 1500 years. There is a suggestion that there might have been a Roman defensive line running straight west to east, a barrier to keep the Germans who were already across the Rhine from going further. It might have stopped them here but obviously the Germans got around it further east.

总体而言，莱茵河与语言边界之间的地带大致宽约100-150公里，向南延伸至山区后逐渐变窄。在这一区域，德意志人的聚居密度足以使日耳曼语取代拉丁语或早期罗曼语。德意志人一路向西，进入西班牙，并远至北非。但在所有这些地方，语言仍然以拉丁语/罗曼语为主，这表明这些地区的德意志人聚居密度远低于边界地区。

Broadly speaking you can see that the strip of territory between the Rhine and the language border is roughly 100–150 kilometres wide until it narrows in the mountain country to the south. In this territory the German settlement was dense enough for the Germanic language to supplant Latin or incipient Romance. The Germans went right through western Europe, into Spain, across into north Africa. But in all those places the language remained Latin/Romance, which indicates much less dense German settlement than in the borderlands.

当法国在十七、十八世纪崛起为世界强国时，它向北、向东扩张了疆界，但语言分布图没有变化。法国东部边境地区的人们仍然讲德语。在法国北部靠近大西洋沿岸的地区，人们讲日耳曼语系的弗拉芒语。地图显示，法国还有一些地区不讲法语。在西南部靠近西班牙边境的地区，居住着讲巴斯克语的人们，他们声称自己脱离法国和西班牙独立。巴斯克语并非印欧语系语言；它的起源至今仍是个谜。在布列塔尼半岛西部，布列塔尼语是凯尔特语的遗存。当盎格鲁人、撒克逊人和朱特人入侵不列颠时，一些居住在英格兰的不列颠人渡过英吉利海峡来到布列塔尼，这里的人们至今仍然讲布列塔尼语，尽管布列塔尼语的使用范围正在缩小。

When France expanded as the great power of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it pushed its boundaries north and east but the language map didn’t change. The people in the eastern border country of France are still German-speaking. In the north of the country near the Atlantic coast, the people speak the Germanic language Flemish. The map shows there are some other areas of France where French is not spoken. In the south-west near the Spanish border, there are Basque-speaking people who claim independence from both France and Spain. Basque is not an Indo-European language; no-one quite knows where it comes from. On the western peninsula of Britanny, the Breton language is a Celtic survival. When the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded Britain, some of the Britons in England crossed the Channel to Brittany and the people here still speak Breton, though the area of Breton-speakers is contracting.

随着德意志人进军法国，他们不再取代拉丁语/罗曼语，但他们也为这门正在演变的语言贡献了一些德语词汇，特别是那些与君主、政府和封建制度相关的词汇；也就是说，这些词汇构成了新兴统治阶级的术语。法语中表示羞耻和骄傲的词汇就源自德语，这些概念对德意志战士来说至关重要。

As they advanced into France, the Germans no longer supplanted Latin/Romance, but they contributed some German words to the evolving language, particularly those concerned with kings and government and with the feudal system; that is, the terminology of the new ruling class. The words for shame and pride in French come from the German, very important concepts to the German warriors.

在英格兰，日耳曼语族取得了彻底的胜利，这并不令人意外，因为盎格鲁人、撒克逊人和朱特人入侵，彻底压制了当地的英国人。随后，在九世纪和十世纪，讲日耳曼语的民族——诺斯人或丹麦人——再次入侵英格兰。英语的基本词汇和语法正是在这些日耳曼语族语言融合的过程中形成的。在这个过程中，英语失去了其德语起源的词形变化。

It is in England that the Germanic languages had a complete victory, which is to be expected given the over-running of the native Britons by the invading Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Then, in the ninth and tenth centuries, there was a second invasion of England by people speaking a Germanic language, the Norsemen or the Danes. The basic vocabulary and grammar of English emerged with the melding of these Germanic tongues. In the process English lost the inflections of its German origins.

1066年，英格兰遭遇了第三次入侵，这次是由威廉公爵率领的诺曼法国人。诺曼人原本是来自北方的北欧人，国王为了阻止他们的劫掠，鼓励他们定居在法国。他们说着自己的法语方言，这种法语属于罗曼语族，仍然保留着大量的拉丁语成分。英格兰的新统治阶级在接下来的几个世纪里继续使用诺曼法语，直到这种语言也融入英语，这极大地丰富了英语词汇量。现在，几乎所有事物都有两个或多个词汇来表达。除了英语中的“ king”（国王）和“kingly” （王室的）之外，还增加了“royal”（皇家的） 、“regal” （帝王的）和“sovereign”（君主） 。英语的词汇量比以往任何语言都要丰富得多。比德国和法国都大——毕竟，它是德国和法国的混合体。

In 1066 there was a third invasion of England, this time by the Norman French led by Duke William. The Normans were originally Norsemen from the north encouraged to settle in France by the king to put a stop to their marauding. They spoke their own version of French, which, being a Romance language, still carried a lot of Latin. England’s new ruling class continued to speak Norman French for several centuries until this too was melded into English, which resulted in a huge increase in the vocabulary of English. There were now two or more words for almost everything. To the English king and kingly were added royal, regal and sovereign. English has a vocabulary several times larger than German and French—it is, after all, an amalgam of German and French.

以下表格概述了罗马帝国灭亡后西欧和英格兰语言的演变。

Here is a table summarising the evolution of languages in western Europe and England after the fall of the Roman Empire

拉丁语作为平民语言已经消失，但它作为学术、文学和教会的语言却得以保留。这就是为什么许多拉丁语词汇流传到所有欧洲语言中的原因。由于教会人士和学者仍然使用拉丁语进行交流和写作，它仍然是一种鲜活的语言，因此也随之发生变化——或者，按照纯粹主义者的标准来看，它正在退化。即使在这些圈子里，拉丁语也有可能步罗曼语的后尘。第一次拉丁语复兴工作是在查理曼大帝的指示下进行的。古老的拉丁语手稿被抄录下来，人们努力使现代拉丁语的用法与古典时期的拉丁语保持一致。

Latin had disappeared as the language of ordinary people but it survived as the language of learning, literature and the church. This is why so many Latin words passed into all European languages. Since churchmen and scholars were still speaking and writing Latin, it was a living language and hence subject to change—or, by purist standards, it was being degraded. There was a chance that even in these circles Latin would go the way of Romance. The first restoration job on Latin was undertaken at Charlemagne’s direction. The old Latin manuscripts were copied and efforts made to make the current use of Latin match the classical original.

由于拉丁语是学术和文学的语言，学术和文学变得极其遥远。如果你想接受教育，首先必须学习一门外语。在中世纪，绝大多数人都是文盲，这很常见。最不寻常的是，富人和权贵也都是文盲，因为他们不懂拉丁语。因此，口头文化，如歌谣和故事，得以传承。文化渗透到社会的各个角落。弄臣或吟游诗人让城堡里的领主们感到愉悦；领主根本不可能独自一人静下心来读书。传统和习俗至关重要，因为世间万物能用文字理解和掌控的实在太少。当欧洲贵族和骑士参加十字军东征抵达圣地时，穆斯林绅士们惊讶于他们的粗俗和文盲程度。

Since Latin was the language of learning and literature, learning and literature became extremely remote. If you wanted to be educated you had first to learn a foreign language. In the Middle Ages the great mass of the people were illiterate, which is common enough. What is most unusual is that the rich and powerful were also illiterate because they did not know Latin. So oral culture of song and story ran right through society. The jester or the minstrel kept the lord in his castle amused; there was no chance that the lord could retire with a book. Tradition and custom were all-important because so little of the world could be understood and managed by writing. When European nobles and knights arrived in the Holy Land on crusade, the Muslim gentlemen were astounded that they were so crude and unlettered.

逐渐地，一种用白话文写成的文学形式兴起；也就是说，它是用所有民族的第一语言而非拉丁语写成的。法国最早的故事被称为“romans”，取自它们所使用的语言。这是一种贬低它们的方式——这是低俗的地方作品——这是“ roman”。后来， “roman”一词就成了法语中“故事”的意思。由于这些故事讲述的是骑士、他们的英勇事迹以及他们对美丽少女的爱情，因此这些故事的主题被定义为“Romance”（浪漫）。这就解释了“Romance”一词奇特的双重含义：既指源自拉丁语的语言，又指低俗小说的主题。

Gradually a literature in the vernacular language emerged; that is, it was written in the first language of all the people and not Latin. The first stories in France were called romans, after the language in which they were written. It was a way of dismissing them—it’s a trashy local work—it’s a roman. Roman then became the French word for story. Because the stories were about knights, their heroic deeds and their love for beautiful maidens, the subject of the stories was identified as Romance. This explains the odd double meaning of Romance, as a language derived from Latin and the subject treated in trashy novels.

文艺复兴时期，拉丁语迎来了第二次伟大的复兴。学者们鄙视中世纪，其中一个原因是当时的拉丁语水平低下且不纯正。他们的目标是用古典时代伟大作家的拉丁语进行写作。文艺复兴时期的先驱学者彼特拉克走遍欧洲，寻找西塞罗书信的副本。找到之后，他用纯正的拉丁语给西塞罗本人写了一封信。贵族和绅士们开始接受拉丁语教育，并非因为拉丁语是教会和神学辩论的语言，而是为了能够阅读古典著作，并用古典时代的拉丁语写作。直到二十世纪，拉丁语一直是中学和高等教育的核心科目。我自己也必须通过拉丁语考试才能入学。大学毕业典礼用拉丁语举行，学位术语至今仍经常使用拉丁语：ad eundem gradum达到同一学位，cum laude获得荣誉（赞扬），summa cum laude获得最高荣誉，honoris causa因荣誉而获得（荣誉学位）。

The second great restoration job on Latin was undertaken in the Renaissance. Scholars despised the Middle Ages because, among other things, the Latin was so degraded and impure. Their aim was to write in the Latin of the great classical authors. Petrarch, the pioneer scholar of the Renaissance, scoured Europe searching for a copy of Cicero’s letters. When he found them he composed, in perfect Latin, a letter to Cicero himself. Noblemen and gentlemen were now being educated and in Latin, not because it was the language of the church and theological dispute, but so that they could read the classics and write in the Latin of the classical age. Until the twentieth century, Latin was at the centre of secondary and tertiary education. I myself had to pass Latin in order to matriculate. University graduation ceremonies were conducted in Latin and the terminology of degrees is still frequently in Latin: ad eundem gradum to the same degree, cum laude with honours (praise), summa cum laude with highest honours, honoris causa by reason of honour (for honorary degrees).

拉丁语是欧洲各地受过教育的男性之间的一种重要纽带（女孩不学习拉丁语）。它为他们提供了一种共同的第二语言、一种社交纽带，以及一种他们可以随时使用的“暗语”。在英国下议院，发言者会引用一句著名的古典格言。用拉丁文，而不是翻译。如果你看不懂，就不应该看。一些不能出现在印刷品上的性词汇，会用拉丁文印刷，这样普通人就看不懂，也就不会被曲解。所以，一本书刚开始变得有趣，就变成了外语。英语至今仍带有这种影响—— “genitalia”指性器官，源自拉丁文；“pudenda”也是如此，它完美地体现了拉丁语的简洁和清教徒式的性观念：它也指性器官，尤其是女性的性器官，字面意思是“羞耻之事”。

Latin was a great bond between educated men across Europe (girls did not study Latin). It gave them a common second language, a social bond and a sort of code they could drop into. In the English House of Commons, a speaker would quote a famous classical saying in the Latin and not translate it. If you did not understand it, you should not be there. Sexual terms that could not appear in print could be printed in Latin so that ordinary people could not understand them and be corrupted. So just when a book got interesting it turned foreign. English still bears the marks of this—genitalia for sex organs is Latin; so is pudenda, a wonderful example of Latin succinctness and of puritanical attitudes to sex: it too refers to the sex organs, particularly women’s, and means literally ‘matters that are shameful’.

在文艺复兴时期拉丁语复兴的同时，本土语言也获得了新的地位和尊重。首先，这要归功于15世纪50年代印刷术的发明。最早印刷的书籍是古典作家的作品，但需求有限。印刷商通过出版地方语言书籍或古典作品的译本，获得了更广阔的市场。据说莎士比亚拉丁语水平不高，希腊语水平更低，他的古典历史知识主要来自诺斯翻译的普鲁塔克《希腊罗马名人传》（1579年出版，当时莎士比亚15岁）。这为他创作《尤利乌斯·凯撒》和《安东尼与克莉奥佩特拉》提供了素材。其次， 16世纪的基督教新教改革者希望民众能够亲自阅读《圣经》，因此必须将其翻译成地方语言。路德的首要任务就是将《圣经》翻译成德语。对于新教徒来说，拉丁语不再是神圣事物的语言。

At the same time as the Renaissance revival of Latin, the vernacular languages gained new status and respect. First, because of the invention of printing in the 1450s. The first books to be printed were the classical authors but the demand for them was limited. Printers gained a wider market when they issued books in the local language or translations of the classics. Shakespeare, who it is said had little Latin and less Greek, learnt his classical history from North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, which appeared in 1579, when Shakespeare was fifteen. That gave him the material for Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. Second, the Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century wanted the people to read the Bible for themselves, so it had to be translated into the local language. Luther’s first task was to translate the Bible into German. For Protestants, Latin ceased to be the language of holy things.

早期的书籍仍然用拉丁文写成，因此欧洲各地受过教育的男性都能立即阅读到这些著作。最早提出太阳是宇宙中心的哥白尼、提出行星运动定律的开普勒以及完成科学革命的牛顿，他们的著作都是用拉丁文撰写的。但到了十七世纪，科学家和哲学家们开始使用各自的母语写作，他们的著作必须翻译成其他语言才能被更广泛的读者所理解。

Original books continued to be written in Latin and so were immediately accessible to educated men throughout Europe. Copernicus, who first posited the sun at the centre of the universe, Kepler, who formulated laws of the planets’ motion, and Newton, who completed the Scientific Revolution, all wrote in Latin. But after the seventeenth century, scientists and philosophers wrote in their local language and their works had to be translated to reach a wider audience.

拉丁语发展史上曾有一项晚期成就流传至今，那就是瑞典植物学家林奈在十八世纪创立的植物命名系统。林奈在学校学习过拉丁语，并阅读过亚里士多德用拉丁语撰写的自然分类著作。他的系统用拉丁语为植物命名，包含属名和种名。如果植物的发现者要出现在植物名称中，则其名字也需要用拉丁语写出。库克船长的植物学家约瑟夫·班克斯就曾使用过这套系统。伟大的航程，以澳洲灌木植物班克木（Banksia）的名字而永垂不朽。

There was one late flowering of Latin that still survives, the system for naming plants that was developed by the Swedish botanist Linnaeus in the eighteenth century. He had learnt Latin at school and read in Latin Aristotle’s works classifying the natural order. His system gives in Latin two names to plants: their genus and their species. Discoverers of plants are rendered into a Latin form if they are to be part of the plant’s name. Joseph Banks, who was the botanist on Cook’s great voyage, is immortalised in the name Banksia, the shrubby Australian plant.

基督教创立之初，西方通用的语言是拉丁语。它成为教会治理、教义辩论、信仰宣告和教会礼拜的语言。这与阿拉伯语不同，阿拉伯语是神圣的语言，也是先知穆罕默德的语言。耶稣用阿拉姆语讲话，他的教诲被记录在东地中海地区的通用希腊语中。旧约圣经的语言是希伯来语。但拉丁语将所有信徒凝聚在一起，并一直是天主教礼拜的语言，直到第二次梵蒂冈大公会议（1962-1965）授权使用当地语言。教宗的通谕也继续用拉丁语发布。教宗保禄六世在《人类生命》 （1968 ）中阐述了教会关于避孕和堕胎的教义。一些信徒仍然以拉丁语进行教会礼拜，几乎是一种秘密仪式。现任教宗则更倾向于在弥撒中使用拉丁语。

When Christianity began, the universal language in the west was Latin. It became the language for the governing of the church, for the arguments over its doctrines, for the pronouncements of the faith and for the conduct of church services. It was not like Arabic, a holy language, which was the language of the prophet Muhammad. Jesus spoke in Aramaic and his words were recorded in the common Greek of the eastern Mediterranean. The language of the Old Testament was Hebrew. But Latin brought all the faithful together and it continued to be the language of Catholic worship until the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) authorised the use of the local language. The encyclicals of the pope continued to be issued in Latin. Pope Paul VI declared the church’s teaching on contraception and abortion in Humanae Vitae (1968; Of Human Life). Some of the faithful continued church services in Latin, almost as an underground rite. The present pope is more favourably inclined to the use of Latin in the mass.

就像罗马帝国的理念一样，拉丁语也早已走向衰落。 

Like the idea of the Roman Empire, Latin has been a long time dying. 

是你会喜欢上普通百姓。他们衣衫褴褛，浑身散发着异味，外表并不讨喜，因为他们营养不良，面容憔悴，饱受疾病折磨，在各种恶劣天气下辛勤劳作，遍体鳞伤。你为什么会喜欢他们呢？因为他们的命运很容易理解；他们世世代代都在重复着同样的事情。几乎所有人都在种植粮食。

YOU WILL LIKE the common people. They are dirty, smelly and not attractive to look at because they are under-nourished, worn down and marked by disease, battered and scarred by hard work in all weathers. Why would you like them? Because their fortunes are easy to follow; they go on doing the same thing century after century. Nearly all of them grow food.

我们不需要时间线来讨论这些问题；我们有一张图表，显示变化非常小。这张图表显示了种植粮食或与粮食生产密切相关的人口比例；也就是说，我们把居住在农村村庄或定居点以及为农业提供支持的人，例如车轮匠、铁匠或劳工，都包括在内。这些数字只是非常粗略的估计。在罗马帝国，大约90%百分之十的人口生活在乡村。帝国境内也有一些大城市，其中最杰出的当属罗马城本身，但这些城市的人口仅占总人口的百分之十。大城市的粮食供应来自乡村，但粮食重量大，陆路运输距离很远，很快就会被消耗殆尽。罗马的粮食则从埃及经海路运来，这是当时最经济的运输方式。在罗马帝国后期，政府对罗马的粮食分配进行补贴，以维持民众的生活水平；罗马就像今天的第三世界城市一样，拥有巨大的吸引力，却无法养活所有涌入的人口。除了免费面包，罗马还在斗兽场定期举办各种表演。罗马讽刺作家尤维纳利斯曾将当时的政府描述为靠“面包和马戏”维持生计。

We don’t need a timeline to discuss them; we have a graph which shows very little variation. The graph shows the proportion of people who are growing food or who are very closely connected to it; that is, we include people living in rural villages or settlements and supporting farming such as wheelwrights, blacksmiths or labourers. The figures are very crude estimates. In the Roman Empire, roughly 90 per cent of the people were in the countryside. There were great cities in the empire, pre-eminently Rome itself, but they constituted only 10 per cent of the population. The big cities were supplied with grain from the country, but grain is a heavy product and could not be carted far by land before its whole value was consumed. The grain for Rome came from Egypt by sea, which was by far the cheapest mode of transport. In the later stages of the Roman Empire, the government subsidised the distribution of grain in Rome to keep the people content; Rome was like a Third-World city of today, a great magnet but unable to provide a living for all the people who flocked to it. Along with free bread, Rome provided regular spectacles in the Colosseum. The Roman satirist Juvenal described the government surviving by ‘bread and circuses’.

这种粮食贸易非同寻常。帝国的大部分贸易都是轻便的、贵重的奢侈品，只有长途马车才能运得起。在罗马帝国，就像19世纪之前的欧洲一样，大多数人依靠就近种植或生产的物品为生：他们的食物、饮料、衣服和住所都是当地产品。欧洲的古老农舍使用茅草屋顶，并非因为茅草比石板屋顶更美观，而是因为茅草是当时最便宜的材料。因此，在经济方面，罗马人并非变革力量；他们的创新之处在于通过一部统一的法律将帝国凝聚在一起，并建立了一个极其高效的军事组织。笔直的罗马道路（部分路段至今仍保存完好）是由陆军工程师设计的，其主要目的是为了让士兵能够快速行军。这就是道路笔直的原因；如果是为了马车通行而设计的，坡度就会更加平缓。

This grain trade was exceptional. Most of the trade in the empire was in light, valuable luxury goods that could afford a long carriage. In the Roman Empire, as in Europe until the nineteenth century, most people survived on what was grown or made nearby: their food, drink, clothes and shelter were all local products. Old cottages in Europe have thatched roofs not because it is more picturesque than slate but because it was the cheap material to hand. So in the economy the Romans were not a transforming force; their innovation lay in binding an empire together by a single law and with a military organisation that was outstandingly efficient. The straight Roman roads, parts of which survive, were designed by army engineers for the prime purpose of allowing soldiers to march quickly from place to place. That’s why they are straight; if they were designed for horse and carts, the gradients would have been more gentle.

在罗马帝国的最后两个世纪里，随着日耳曼入侵者的侵扰，城市人口不断减少；贸易萎缩，地方自给自足变得愈发重要。帝国鼎盛时期，城市并没有城墙。罗马的敌人被阻挡在边境之外。到了公元三世纪，城镇周围开始修建城墙，而一些城镇衰落的证据是，后来的城墙围起的面积越来越小。到公元476年帝国灭亡时，全国人口比例已上升至95%。

In the last two centuries of the Roman Empire, the cities were losing population as the German invaders attacked them; trade contracted and local self-sufficiency became more imperative. In its great days the empire’s cities did not have walls. The enemies of Rome were kept out at the frontiers. In the third century, walls around towns began to be built and in places the evidence for the decline of towns is that later walls enclosed a smaller area. By the disappearance of the empire in 476 AD, the proportion of people in the country was rising to 95 per cent.

它在那里存在了几个世纪。日耳曼人的入侵之后，又有其他入侵者：七、八世纪的穆斯林劫掠了法国南部和意大利；九、十世纪的维京人带来了巨大的破坏。十一、十二世纪和平到来，贸易和城镇生活开始复苏。一些城镇在五世纪之后几乎完全消失；另一些城镇也大幅衰落。

It remained there for centuries. The German invasions were followed by others: Muslims in the seventh and eighth centuries who raided into southern France and into Italy; Vikings in the ninth and tenth centuries who spread great mayhem. Peace came in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and trade and town life began to revive. Some towns had almost completely disappeared after the fifth century; others had been much reduced.

图表显示，人口比例开始缓慢下降。15世纪，欧洲开始向海外扩张，这带动了商业、银行业和航运业的发展，进而促进了城镇的扩张。到1800年，西欧农村人口比例可能已降至85%，略低于罗马帝国时期。如此长的时间里，人口比例几乎没有变化。唯一的例外是英国，到1800年，随着城市蓬勃发展，英国农村人口比例迅速下降；到1850年，英国一半的人口都居住在城市。

The graph begins a very slow fall. In the fifteenth century Europe started to expand overseas, which led to a growth of commerce, banking and shipping, and hence the growth of towns. By 1800 the proportion of people in the countryside in western Europe might have fallen to 85 per cent, slightly lower than in the Roman Empire. There was very little movement over such a long time. The one exception is England, where by 1800 the rural proportion was falling rapidly as cities boomed; by 1850, half the population of England was in cities.

耕种粮食的人身份各异；在任何时候，他们可能是小地主、奴隶、前奴隶、农奴、前农奴、佃农、分成农和劳工。我们统称他们为农民。但无论身份如何，无论身处哪个时代，耕作的方式都一样。在意大利、法国南部和西班牙，19世纪的耕作方式与罗马时代并无二致。犁很原始；可以把它想象成一根分叉的木棍，底部装有刀片。牛或马拉着犁；耕夫握住犁柄，控制方向，刀片切入地面的深度很浅。这只不过是在地表轻轻刮一下。耕作的方式是棋盘式的，沿着田地犁，然后再横着犁。

The people growing food differed in status; at any one time and over time they might be small proprietors, slaves, ex-slaves, serfs, ex-serfs, tenants, sharecroppers and labourers. We will call them all peasants. But the work was the same whoever you were and whatever the era. In Italy, southern France and Spain, ploughing in the nineteenth century was the same as in Roman times. The plough was primitive; think of the plough as a forked stick with a cutting blade at its base. An oxen or horse pulls the plough; the ploughman holds and directs it and the blade penetrates not very far below the surface. It was not much more than scratching the surface. You ploughed in checkerboard fashion, along the field and then across it.

中世纪早期最伟大的发明之一是轮式犁。发明者已不可考。这种犁在法国北部、德国和英国等土壤较为黏重的地区更为高效。其原理与现代犁相同，只是由牲畜牵引，并由人操作。犁体上有一个锋利的刀片用于切割土壤，还有一个翻土板用于翻动切割下来的土壤。这样就能犁出沟槽，而不仅仅是划痕，而且所有沟槽都方向一致，彼此平行——不像旧式犁那样形成交叉的纹路。在黏重的土壤中，水可以顺着沟槽流走。耕作是一项艰苦的工作；你不仅仅是操控犁那么简单。你没有用肩膀和胳膊牢牢地托住犁，它就会倒下来而不是犁地。犁完地后，你再撒播种子，这活儿轻松多了。你走过田野，把种子一绺一绺地撒在地上。然后用耙子（一种耙子）把种子覆盖起来。

One of the great inventions of the early Middle Ages was the wheeled plough. The inventor is unknown. This was more effective for the heavier soils of northern France, Germany and England. In principle it was the same as modern ploughs except that it was pulled by animals and held to the job by humans. There was a sharp cutter that cut the soil and a mouldboard that lifted and turned the soil that had been cut. This produced furrows, not just scratches, and the furrows all ran the same way, parallel to each other—not the crosshatching of the old plough. In the heavy soil, water could run off down the furrows. Ploughing was hard work; you were not just steering the plough. If you didn’t hold it firm with your shoulders and your arms, it would fall over rather than cut the soil. After you ploughed the land, you broadcast the seed, which was easier work. You walked over the fields casting the seed in swathes to fall onto the ground. Then with a harrow, a sort of rake, the seed was covered.

男人们耕地。男女老少一起收割庄稼。由于安全收割的时间很短，人们会从城镇招募工人，当地的士兵也可能被从兵营里调出来帮忙。收割时使用镰刀，一种带柄的弯曲刀片。考古学家在最古老的人类聚落中发现了镰刀。直到20世纪初，镰刀仍然是欧洲标准的收割工具。1917年俄国的共产主义革命希望新国旗能够彰显工人阶级的荣耀；国旗上绘有锤子和镰刀，锤子代表城市工人，镰刀代表农村工人。

Men ploughed. Men, women and children harvested and since the time for a safe harvest was short, people would be recruited from the towns and the local soldiers might be turned out of the barracks to help. Harvesting was done with the sickle, a curved blade with a handle. Archaeologists find them in the most ancient human settlements. They were still the standard harvesting mechanism in Europe up until the early twentieth century. The communist revolution in Russia in 1917 wanted its new flag to honour the workers; it carried the hammer and sickle, the hammer for urban workers and the sickle for country workers.

你不能再像现在这样看待耕作和收割了，以为农民们会坐在有空调的拖拉机里，在田野上耕作。以前的农民们年复一年地在每一寸土地上跋涉、弯腰、吃力。

You must not think of cultivation and harvest as you see it now with farmers sitting in air-conditioned tractors driving over the land. Peasants were plodding, bending, straining over every inch of ground year after year.

小麦或大麦收割完毕后，需要将谷粒从穗中敲出。敲谷的工具是连枷，它有一个长长的木柄，柄上用皮绳系着一块平板。挥动木柄，将平板猛击在谷仓地板上的谷粒上。谷仓的门谷仓敞开着，微风会吹走谷壳，只留下好的谷粒留在谷仓地板上。

After the stalks of wheat or barley had been gathered, the grain had to be beaten out of the ears. The tool to do this was a flail, which had a long wooden handle to which a flat board was attached with a leather thong. You swung the handle and brought the board down flat on the ears lying on the floor of the barn. The doors of the barn were open and the breeze would carry away the chaff and leave only the good grain on the barn floor.

谷物被磨成面粉，然后做成面包。面包是生命之源。人们吃的都是大块的面包，除此之外几乎不吃别的；肉也不常吃。面包上可能会抹点黄油或奶酪。面包就是正餐；它不是放在小碟子里，也不是精致篮子里的几片面包。而是三四块。如果生活富裕，一天大约要吃一公斤面包。这相当于每天一个大面包。谷物在各地都有种植，甚至在不适宜种植的地方，在今天也不会种植谷物的地方也是如此。由于运输非常困难，谷物必须在消费地附近种植。从别处运来的谷物非常昂贵。谷物可以通过海运运输，但直到十八世纪运河修建后，内陆长途运输才成为可能。

The grain was made into flour and then into bread. Bread was the staff of life. You eat hunks of it and not much else; you do not eat meat regularly. You might have some butter or cheese to go with your bread. Bread is the meal; it is not on a side plate or a couple of slices in a nice basket. It’s three or four hunks. You eat about a kilo of it a day if you are well-off. That’s a large loaf per day. Grain was grown everywhere, even in places where it was not well-suited and where today grain would not be grown. Because transport was very difficult, the grain had to be grown close to where it was consumed. Grain that came from elsewhere was very expensive. Grain could be shifted by sea, but inland for any distance only became possible in the eighteenth century with the building of canals.

每个人都对收成忧心忡忡。人们谈论天气并非闲聊，而是在思考自己的命运。如果粮食不成熟，或者在收割前因恶劣天气而腐烂，那么整个社区都将遭受损失。粮食必须从其他地方运来，而且价格会非常昂贵。粮食短缺时，面包的价格会翻倍甚至三倍。这不像超市里某件商品价格上涨，你不得不暂时换换别的食物。这是你整个社区的损失。食物摄入量翻倍甚至三倍。一旦达到这个程度，你就会感到饥饿，甚至可能饿得前胸贴后背。

Everyone was always anxious about the harvest. The talk about the weather was not making of conversation; it was a people pondering their fate. If the grain did not ripen or bad weather spoiled the grain before it could be harvested, then the whole community would suffer. Grain would have to come from elsewhere and it would be very expensive. In times of shortage of grain, the price of bread doubled or tripled. This is not like one item in the supermarket that costs a lot more and you have to eat something else for a time. This is the cost of your whole food intake that is doubling or tripling. Once it does that, you are hungry or maybe you are starving.

但粮食是农民种的，高粮价难道不会让他们受益吗？只有那些拥有大片土地的人才会受益。如果你种的粮食只够养活一家人，几乎没有东西可以卖，那么一旦歉收，你就连自己都吃不饱，不得不额外购买粮食。有些人只有一小块地，即使在丰收的时候，也养不活一家人；他们只能靠在大农场做零工来维持生计，并购买额外的粮食。许多人是劳工，没有自己的土地；如果他们和雇主住在一起，雇主会给他们提供食物，他们的生活就不会那么糟糕；如果他们住在自己的小屋里，他们就会经常买面包。当然，城里人总是粮食的买家。粮食价格上涨时，很多人都陷入了困境。

But peasants were growing the food, so wouldn’t high prices benefit them? Only for those with large holdings. If you grew only enough to feed your family with little to sell, a failure in the harvest would mean you didn’t have enough to feed yourselves and you would have to buy extra. Some had small plots which, even in good times, were not enough to supply their family; they relied on getting extra work on larger properties and buying extra food. Many were labourers with no land of their own; if they lived with their employer and got fed they would not be so badly off; if they lived in their own cottage they would be regular buyers of bread. People in the towns, of course, were always buyers. There were lots of people in deep trouble when the price of grain went up.

一旦出现粮食短缺，那些拥有粮食的大型种植者和贸易商就会试图囤积粮食，以期推高价格；或者如果当地价格更高，他们就会将粮食运往其他地方，导致当地居民断粮。大约从1400年开始，随着政府逐渐具备一定的管理能力，他们开始尝试控制粮食交易。他们颁布法律，禁止囤积粮食，并禁止将粮食运出粮食短缺地区。如果地方官员不执行这些法律，民众完全可以自行执行。他们四处搜寻囤积的粮食，强迫大农出售粮食。他们还会袭击运送粮食的马车或船只。正是由于存在引发骚乱和混乱的风险，政府才被迫介入。

As soon as there was a grain shortage, owners of grain—those who grew it in a big way and dealt in it—were tempted to hold it back so that the price would go even higher, or to send it off somewhere else if the price there had risen further and so leave the locals without any grain. As soon as governments were halfway competent, roughly from 1400 onwards, they attempted to control this business. They passed laws to prohibit hoarding and the transporting of grain out of localities where there was scarcity. If the magistrates did not enforce these laws, the people could well enforce them themselves. They went searching for hoards of grain and forced large farmers to sell. They attacked wagons or boats that were taking grain off elsewhere. It was partly because of the potential for riot and disorder that governments were forced to become involved.

大多数人长期以来都生活在对食物的焦虑之中。奢侈在于规律地吃得好；肥胖被视为美；节日就是大吃大喝。在我们的社会中，圣诞节的庆祝活动仍然保留着这种观念的可悲残余；也就是说，人们被期望在这一天大吃大喝——尽管我们平时吃得都很好。我努力保留节日应有的风气，所以除了圣诞节之外，我从不吃火鸡。

Most people most of the time were living with uncertainty over food. Luxury is to eat well regularly; fat is beautiful; holidays are feast days. We still have a pathetic remnant of this in our society in the celebration of Christmas Day; that is, when we are expected to mark the day by eating a lot—even though we eat well all the time. I try and preserve something of the proper ethos of a feast day by never eating turkey on any other day.

耕种土地的85%到95%的人使文明成为可能。如果农民只种植自己所需的粮食，那文明就无法存在了。不可能存在任何城市、领主、祭司、国王或军队——他们都依赖于他人种植粮食。无论是否愿意，农民都必须为他人提供粮食。这一过程在中世纪早期农奴身上体现得最为明显：他们将部分收成作为租金上缴给领主，一部分作为什一税上缴给教会，同时还要无偿在领主的土地上劳作，以确保领主能够获得自己的收成。后来，这种劳作的义务消失了，领主和祭司的报酬也变成了金钱。

The 85–95 per cent of the people who worked the land made civilisation possible. If peasants had grown only enough food for themselves there could not have been any cities or lords, priests or kings, or armies—who all depended on others growing their food. Whether they wanted to or not, the peasants had to supply food to other people. This process can be seen most clearly in the serfs of the early Middle Ages passing a portion of their crop over to their lord as rent, some to the church as a tithe, as well as working on the lord’s land without pay so that he would have his own crop. Later the obligation to work ceased and payment to the lord and priest was in money.

中世纪早期，国家并不征税；在此之前，在罗马帝国时期，以及之后欧洲新兴国家，农民都是纳税人。我们现存一幅描绘罗马帝国征税场景的画作，画中展现了收税员和前来缴税的农民。交易记录并非写在纸上，而是刻在涂蜡的木板上。这是帝国运转的关键：从农民手中收取税款，用于支付士兵的薪饷。从农民身上榨取钱财是文明的基石。由此可见，这种征税方式多么直接。你无需写信给收税员，也无需寄支票；他不会在你挣到钱的时候就从你的工资中扣除一部分。收税员是一个活生生的人，他会主动找上门来；如果你拒不缴税，他会带着强制手段再次上门。纳税并非由官僚机构控制，而是面对面的交流。在罗马帝国，收税员被称为“publicani”，意为“为公众征税的人”。他们被人憎恨。就连耶稣也助长了人们对他们的刻板印象，认为他们是最糟糕的人。他说，爱那些爱你的人并没有什么特别的美德——就连税吏也会这样做。在《圣经》钦定版中，“publicani”被翻译为“税吏”（publicans）。耶稣因与“税吏”交往而受到批评。以及罪人。这对那些持有酒馆执照的人来说非常不公平。

In the early Middle Ages there was no taxation by the state; before, in the Roman Empire, and afterwards in the emerging states of Europe, peasants were taxpayers. We have a depiction of tax-collecting in the Roman Empire showing the tax collectors and the peasants coming to pay. The transaction is recorded not on paper but on waxed boards. This is the key transaction for the running of the empire: you take money from peasants and you use it to pay your soldiers. Screwing money out of peasants is the foundation of civilisation. You see how direct this tax-gathering is. You do not write to this taxman or send him a cheque; he doesn’t deduct a portion of your pay as you earn it. The taxman is a live person who seeks you out; if you refuse to pay, he will return with the force to make you. Tax-paying was not bureaucratically controlled; it was a face-to-face encounter. In the Roman Empire the tax-gatherers were called publicani, that is, those who are collecting for the public. They were hated. Even Jesus assisted in stereotyping them as the worst people when he said there is no particular virtue in loving those who love you—even the tax-gatherers will do that. In the King James version of the Bible, publicani is translated as publicans. Jesus is criticised for mixing with ‘publicans and sinners’. This was very unfair to those who held licences for public houses.

当然，说农民被坑是很不恰当的说法。或许他们应该乐于纳税，或者至少应该抱怨几句；没人喜欢纳税，但我们却能享受到政府提供的各种服务。然而，农民却什么服务都没享受到。政府不办学校，也不维护医疗卫生。道路大多由地方政府负责，除非有军事用途。罗马人通过提供供水和污水处理系统来保障城市的公共卫生，但他们对农村地区却置之不理。直到近代，大部分税收，也就是80%到90%，都被用于军费开支。那么，农民真的从抵御外敌的斗争中受益了吗？其实不然，因为对农民来说，战争意味着为了争夺自己的土地而战，他们的粮食和牲畜被征用，供养双方军队。

To speak of peasants being screwed is, of course, very loaded language. Perhaps they should have enjoyed paying their taxes, or at least only grumbled about it; no-one likes paying taxes, but we get the benefit of the services that government provides. Except the peasants got no services. Governments did not run schools or health systems. Mostly they didn’t look after the roads; roads were matters for local concern except where they had a military importance. The Romans looked after the public health of their cities by providing water and sewerage systems, but they did not do anything for the countryside. Until very recent times most tax collected, 80 or 90 per cent of it, was spent on the armed forces. So did the peasant benefit from the foreign foe being kept at bay? Not really, because war to the peasant meant battles fought over his land, and his food and animals being taken to feed both armies.

武力威胁以及上层阶级坚持认为农民低人一等，必须服从，这使得农民不得不缴纳赋税，但抗议、骚乱和起义仍然时有发生。农民的行动源于他们自身的世界观：如果国王、主教和地主不干涉他们，他们就能过得很好。这种想法很容易理解，因为农民确实自己种植粮食、建造房屋、酿造酒水、织布。许多现代人选择退出竞争激烈的社会；他们认为，生活只需要一块土地来种植粮食就足够了。但你不需要在土地上待太久就会意识到，你实际上需要钱来购买牛仔裤、毒品、酒水和DVD，还要支付汽油费和电话费。很快，这些退出者就开始从事兼职工作，荒废了农活；不久之后，他们又重新回到全职工作中。但对农民来说，自给自足是真实存在的；在他们看来，政府和教会不过是负担，从他们那里拿走的钱财就是抢劫。

The threat of force and the insistence by their betters that they were inferior people who were bound to obey and comply kept peasants paying their taxes, but still there were regular protests, riots and rebellions. Peasants were inspired to act by their own view of the world, which was that if kings, bishops and landlords left us alone we would be perfectly all right. It was easy to think this because peasants did grow all their own food, build their own housing, brew their own grog, weave their own clothes. A lot of modern people choose to drop out of the rat-race; they think all you need to live is a plot of land on which to grow your own food. You do not have to be on the land for long to realise that you actually need money to buy jeans, drugs, grog and DVDs, and petrol and phone bills have to be paid for. Soon the drop-outs are taking part-time work and neglecting their farming; soon after that they are back in full-time work. But for the peasants self-sufficiency was real; it looked to them that the government and the church were mere burdens and the money taken from them was robbery.

农民起义总是遭到镇压——直到法国大革命爆发的第一年。法国农民和其他人一样，在中世纪都是农奴。中世纪晚期西欧废除农奴制后，各种各样的协议开始适用于这些前农奴。在法国，法律规定农民拥有土地所有权，可以出售或离开土地。然而，他们以及土地的购买者仍然需要向领主缴纳旧有的封建税赋和义务，例如在领主女儿出嫁时赠送礼物，或者每周在领主的土地上劳作一定天数。这些义务已经从礼物和服务转变为金钱支付。因此，这些拥有土地的农民仍然需要支付各种各样的租金。地主和佃农：这是一种非常特殊的局面。

THE PEASANT REVOLTS were always suppressed—until the first year of the French Revolution. The French peasants, like all the others, had been serfs in the Middle Ages. When serfdom came to an end in western Europe in the late Middle Ages, a variety of deals operated for the ex-serfs. In France the law ruled that the peasants were the owners of their lands, which they could sell and leave. However, they and whoever bought the land still had to pay the old feudal dues and obligations to the lord, such as giving something when the lord’s daughter got married or being obliged to work on the lord’s land so many days per week. These had been turned from gifts and service into money payments. So these peasant owners of land still had to pay a grab-bag of rents. Owner and tenant: it was a most unusual situation.

那些拥有大庄园的主人——可能是领主，但现在也可能是富裕的中产阶级——雇佣了精明的律师，翻阅账簿，确保所有应缴款项和义务都已用货币支付。然而，当这些应缴款项和义务被兑换成货币时，却完全没有考虑通货膨胀；用我们的话来说，这些货币支付并没有根据通货膨胀进行调整。因此，领主完全有动机找出那些被遗漏或计算错误的债务。这恐怕是最令人恼火和愤怒的关系了：领主眼睁睁地看着土地的所有权转移到农民手中，于是他通过提高旧应缴款项和义务的货币支付额来弥补这一损失。农民们奋起反抗；他们联合起来，聘请自己的律师与领主的律师们抗争。

The owners of the large estates—it could be a lord but now also a rich, middle-class person—employed smart lawyers to check back through the records to see that all dues and obligations were being met by some money payment. When the dues and obligations were changed into money, no account had been taken of inflation; the money payments were not, to use our term, indexed for inflation. So the lord had every incentive to find obligations that had been overlooked or wrongly calculated. There could scarcely be a more annoying and aggravating relationship; the lord had seen the ownership of the land pass to the peasant and he compensated for that loss by ratcheting up the money payments for the old dues and obligations. The peasants fought back; they clubbed together to hire their own lawyers to do battle with their lord’s.

1788年，国王召开三级会议，农民们以为新的一天即将到来；所有令他们痛恨的压迫都将解除。然而，事态却出现了令人不安的延迟；他们听说了巴士底狱陷落和国王接受国民议会的消息，但他们向领主缴纳的税款却依然存在。这其中必定隐藏着某种阴谋。由于上一季收成不佳，新一季的庄稼尚未成熟，面包价格居高不下，而且还在不断上涨。谣言四起，说贵族和强盗正试图阻止改革的到来。农民们真的走上街头，与强盗们展开搏斗，最终击败了他们。他们还进军领主们的城堡，要求领主或其亲属解除他们的统治。代理人销毁了记录他们付款情况的大账簿。如果领主同意，他们就心满意足地离开；如果领主不同意，他们就放火烧毁城堡。

When the king called the Estates General in 1788, the peasants assumed that a new day was going to dawn; all these hated impositions would be lifted from them. But there was a troubling delay; they heard about the fall of the Bastille and the king’s acceptance of the National Assembly, but their payments to the lord survived. Some foul conspiracy must be afoot. The price of bread was high and rising because the last harvest had been poor and the new harvest was not yet in. Rumours swept the countryside that aristocrats and bandits were trying to stop the reform from reaching the country. Peasants actually marched out to meet and defeat the bandits. They also marched on the lords’ chateaux and demanded that the lord or his agent destroy the great registers in which their payments were recorded. If the lord agreed they went away satisfied; if he did not they set the chateau alight.

巴黎的革命者们对席卷全国的农民起义束手无策。这完全出乎他们的意料。他们原本打算在制定出《人权宣言》和新宪法之后，再着手解决农民的诉求。然而，问题在于，革命者中不乏靠购买土地而获得农民收入的人。

The revolutionaries in Paris did not know what to do about this peasant rebellion sweeping the countryside. This is not what they expected at all. In due time, once they had formulated the Rights of Man and a new constitution, they would address the peasant grievances. The difficulty was that among the revolutionaries themselves were people who received payments from peasants on lands they had bought.

革命者不希望国王派兵镇压农民，因为这通常是应对农民起义的手段。如果国王下令出兵，他很可能在镇压完农民之后，转而对付革命者。因此，议会的领导人决定必须满足农民的意愿。1789年8月4日晚，在一场通宵会议上，发言者谴责了各种赋税和义务。那些从中获利的人竞相谴责，并承诺进行改革。这既有精心策划的成分，也有歇斯底里的情绪。但他们并非完全失去理智：他们要区分两种赋税：一种是与个人劳役相关的，将被立即废除；另一种是与财产相关的，将在稍后取消，并给予所有者补偿。区分这两种赋税非常困难；农民拒绝接受这种区分，并且从那时起，他们再也没有缴纳过任何赋税。1793年，随着革命的深入和新宪法的颁布，所有赋税和义务都被取消了。

The revolutionaries did not want the king to send out his army to control the peasants, which was the normal response to peasant rebellion. If the king ordered the army out he might, after dealing with the peasants, turn it on the revolutionaries. So the leaders of the assembly decided that they must do what the peasants wanted. On the evening of 4 August 1789, in an all-night sitting, speakers denounced the dues and obligations. Men who had benefited from them out-did each other in condemnation and promise of reform. It was half stage-managed and half hysteria. But they did not lose their heads completely: a distinction was to be drawn between payments that related to personal service, which would be swept away immediately, and those that related to property, which would be removed later and with compensation to owners. It was very hard to make this distinction; the peasants refused to draw it and from that moment never again made payments of any sort. In 1793, when the revolution became more radical and a new constitution was created, all dues and obligations were cancelled.

农民们完全拥有了自己的土地，彻底摆脱了地主的控制。在整个十九世纪，他们成为法国政坛的一股保守力量，与城市中激进的工人阶级形成鲜明对比。这些激进工人阶级抨击私有财产，并试图建立社会主义社会。法国的权贵们总能指望农民们否决他们的主张。农民们坚守着自己的小块土地，这意味着法国的农业规模小、效率低下。如今，农民们受益于欧洲的补贴，这意味着他们可以以更低的价格出售农产品，从而参与竞争。澳大利亚的农场规模更大、效率更高，而法国农民却在坑我们！

The peasants became full owners of their land, entirely free of their landlords. They then became a conservative force in French politics throughout the nineteenth century, as against radical working-class people in the cities who attacked private property and wanted to create a socialist society. The big men in France could always rely on the peasants to vote that down. They held onto their small plots, which meant that agriculture in France would remain small-scale and inefficient. Today the peasants benefit from European subsidies, which means they can market their produce at lower prices and compete against Australia’s larger and more efficient farmers. The French peasants are now screwing us!

在英国，农奴制结束后，土地分配方式发生了彻底的改变。各种形式的封建赋税和义务都消失了。农奴变成了现代意义上的佃农，只需向地主缴纳租金。佃农持有租约，租期有时很长，甚至可能是终身租约，但租约到期后，地主可以驱逐佃农，并将土地租给其他人。在法国，农民的权益更有保障；他们不会被驱逐，但仍然需要缴纳封建赋税和履行其他义务。英国地主和佃农之间现代商业关系的建立，促成了农业生产力的巨大飞跃，即所谓的农业革命。

In England a totally different arrangement of the land followed the end of serfdom. Feudal dues and obligations in any form disappeared. The serf became a tenant farmer in the modern way, simply paying rent to the landlord. The tenant held a lease, sometimes for long time, perhaps even for life, but when the lease expired the landlord could remove the tenant and rent the land to someone else. In France the peasant had greater security; he could not be removed but he had to pay the feudal dues and obligations. The existence of a modern, commercial relationship between landlord and tenant in England allowed for the huge jump in agricultural productivity that is called the Agricultural Revolution.

这场革命包含两个要素：农业耕作方式的改进和土地所有权的重新分配。它与农业机械的改进无关；拖拉机和收割设备出现得晚得多。

The revolution had two elements: an improvement in agricultural practice and a re-arrangement of land holdings. It had nothing to do with the improvement of agricultural machinery; tractors and harvesting equipment came much later.

首先，我们来谈谈农业实践。所有耕种者面临的基本问题是，定期耕作会耗尽土壤养分。如何解决这个问题呢？罗马帝国以外的日耳曼农民在原有土地肥力耗尽时，就迁往新的土地。这只是一种半永久性农业。在罗马帝国境内，农场的土地被分为两部分。一部分用于耕种；另一部分休耕，也就是让土地休养生息；马、牛、羊和牛在休耕地上吃草，吃掉去年作物的残茬，并留下粪便。到了年底，休耕地会被翻耕，播种新的作物，而农场的另一部分则恢复休耕。这种耕作方式在南欧一直沿用到19世纪。在中世纪的北欧，发展出一种三田制，两块田地用于耕种，第三块田地休耕。其中一块田地在秋季播种谷物，另一块田地在春季播种。你看，效率提高了多少：三分之二的土地都在生产粮食，而不是之前的一半。

First, as to agricultural practice. The basic problem faced by all cultivators is that regular cultivation exhausts the soil. How do you solve it? The German farmers outside the Roman Empire simply moved to new land when the old land was exhausted. This is only semi-permanent agriculture. Within the Roman Empire the land on a farm was divided into two. One part was cropped; the other lay fallow, which means the land was rested; horses, oxen, sheep and cattle grazed on it, eating the stubble of last year’s crop and dropping their manure. At the end of the year the fallow was ploughed up and a new crop sown, and the other part of the farm reverted to fallow. This remained the system in southern Europe until the nineteenth century. In northern Europe in the Middle Ages, a three-field system developed, two carrying crops and the third lying fallow. One grain crop was planted in autumn, the other in spring. You see what an increase in efficiency this is: two-thirds of the land is producing grain instead of one half.

在十八世纪的英国，农场被分成四块，每块都种植作物。这就是农业革命。这怎么可能行得通呢？如果土地一直被耕种，它就会……土壤会变得贫瘠。这项技术背后的巧妙之处在于，其中两种作物仍然是粮食作物，另外两种则是牲畜饲料，例如芜菁或三叶草。它们从土壤中吸收不同的元素，因此不会因为连续种植粮食而耗尽土壤养分。三叶草实际上还能通过将大气中的氮固定到土壤中来恢复土壤肥力。由于作物是为牲畜种植的，而牲畜以前只能在休耕地上生存，因此可以饲养更多的牛羊；它们吃得更好，长得更大，产生的粪便也更多。到了年底，原本放牧牛羊的田地就变成了粮食田，并获得了更好的收成。更多更好的牲畜和更好的收成：这就是新的四圃制耕作方式带来的成果。

In England in the eighteenth century, farms were divided into four and crops planted in each of them. This was the Agricultural Revolution. How might this work? If the land is always cropped it will become exhausted. The clever lateral thinking behind this technique was that two of the crops were grain, as before, and two were fodder for animals, such as turnips or clover. They take different elements out of the soil and so the soil was not exhausted by continuous grain cropping. Clover actually regenerates the land by fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere into the soil. Since crops were being grown for animals, who were previously left to survive in the fallow, more cattle and sheep could be farmed; they ate better, became larger, dropped more manure. At the end of the year, a cattle or sheep field became a grain field and yielded a better crop. More and better animals and better crops: this was the outcome of the new four-field practice.

与此同时，土地所有权进行了重新划分，使每位农民都拥有一块固定的土地，即自己的农场，并有明确的边界。这取代了中世纪的土地所有权制度，在中世纪，农民只能拥有村庄土地划分成的三个大型公共田地中的一条或一部分。你没有自己的农场；农场属于村庄，尽管其所有权归领主所有。村庄共同管理着土地。种植什么作物、在哪里种植、何时种植，以及所有人的牲畜都在休耕地上放牧，这些都由大家共同决定。三块公用田地之外，还有荒地、沼泽或林地，也都供所有人放牧或收集茅草和柴火。

At the same time landholdings were re-arranged so that each farmer had a consolidated holding, his own farm, with clear boundaries. This replaced the medieval system in which a farmer had a strip or a portion of each of the three large common fields into which the village land was divided. You did not have your own farm; the farm was the village’s, though its ownership lay with the lord. The village made decisions about what was to be planted, where and when, and everyone’s cattle grazed on the fallow ground. Outside the three common fields was waste ground, marsh or woodland, also available to everyone for grazing or for collecting thatch and firewood.

土地重新划分为统一的地块是通过议会法案进行的，每个村庄都有一项专门的法案。英国议会是由大地主组成的会议，他们认为，为了更好地实施新的农业耕作方式，土地合并（或称圈地）是必要的。新作物的种植和牲畜的饲养需要个人的关注，而不是由村庄统一管理。想要提高土地产量从而增加租金的地主，可以将采用新的耕作方式作为租赁统一农场的必要条件。拒绝种植芜菁的农民将被驱逐，也就是说，他的租约将不会续签。

The re-arrangement of the land into consolidated holdings was carried out by act of parliament, a special act for each village. The parliament of England was a congress of the great landholders, who had decided that consolidation (or enclosure, as it was known) was necessary for the new agricultural practices to be properly followed. Cultivation of the new crops and the better care of animals needed individual attention, not common control by the village. A landlord who wanted to increase the yield of his lands and so increase the money he could charge in rent could make the adoption of the new practices a requirement for holding a lease to a consolidated farm. A farmer who refused to grow turnips would be thrown out; that is, his lease would not be renewed.

土地合并过程十分谨慎。委员们对村里的每个人进行了审查，以确定他们原有的权利。在公共田地耕种一定条状土地的权利以及在公共土地上放牧的权利，被转化为获得一定面积的合并土地的权利。受此次重新分配影响最大的是那些只有公共土地放牧权的佃农；他们只分到一块小得可怜、毫无用处的土地。这些人最有可能离开村庄前往城市。但总体而言，在合并土地上开展新的农业耕作方式需要更多的劳动力，而不是更少。虽然出现了普遍的人口外流，但这主要是因为人口增长迅速。

The consolidation was carefully done. Commissioners examined everyone in the village to establish what their existing rights were. The right to farm so many strips in the common fields and the right to graze on the common lands was translated into the right to a consolidated holding of a certain size. The people who suffered by the re-arrangement were cottagers who had the right only to graze on the common lands; they received a pocket-handkerchief plot that was no good for anything. These were the people most likely to leave for the cities. But overall the new agricultural practices on consolidated holdings required more labour not less. There was a general exodus to the cities but this was because the population was growing rapidly.

农业生产力的提高使城市发展成为可能。总体而言，更少的人口就能为所有人提供足够的食物。英国是第一个实现这一飞跃的大型现代国家。法国也有一些农业改良主义者希望看到类似的土地集中化，但法国农民拥有土地，并且依恋于他们的公社生活；即使是专制君主也无法左右他们。

The increase in agricultural productivity made the growth of cities possible. Overall a smaller proportion of people could provide the food for the whole. England was the first large, modern state to make this leap. There were agricultural improvers in France who wanted to see a similar consolidation of holdings but the peasants there owned the land and were attached to their communal life; even an absolutist monarchy could not push them around.

从十八世纪中叶开始，英国的工业革命与农业革命齐头并进。棉纺和毛织不再由工人在农舍里进行，而是转移到工厂，由水车和蒸汽机等新型机械驱动。工人们变成了设备的维护者和照管者，按时上班，为老板工作，而不是自己当主人。棉纺厂和毛纺厂所在的城镇人口激增。所有这些新的经济活动首先通过运河网络，然后通过铁路网络连接起来。最终，一个大宗商品可以廉价地运往全国各地的国家诞生了。

From the mid-eighteenth century onwards, the Industrial Revolution in England moved lock-step with the Agricultural Revolution. Instead of cotton and wool being spun and woven by workers in their cottages, the business was transferred to factories where new inventions, powered first by water wheel and then by steam engines, did the work. The workers became minders and maintainers of the equipment, working to the clock and working for a boss instead of being their own master. The population of towns with cotton mills and woollen mills soared. All the new economic activity was knitted together first by a network of canals and then by the railways. There was at last a nation where bulk goods could be transported cheaply to every part of it.

英国并没有刻意规划其工业革命。工业革命的顺利进行得益于英国议会对政府的控制。欧洲的专制政府为了增强国家的经济和军事实力，对工业进行规划、推广和保护。组成英国议会的贵族和地主绅士们也积极参与到新兴的经济活动中。他们更倾向于放任自流。旧的行业和就业规则被弃之不顾，或沦为一纸空文。

England did not plan its Industrial Revolution. It was facilitated because in England the parliament controlled the government. Absolutist governments in Europe planned, promoted and protected industry in order to increase the economic and military power of the state. The nobility and landed gentlemen of England who composed the parliament were involved themselves in the new economic activity and were more inclined to let it rip. The old rules regulating industry and employment were swept aside or allowed to become dead letters.

这两次革命带来的社会变革是痛苦的。但第一个城市化、工业化的国家带来了希望，让那些曾经生活在勉强糊口边缘、饱受苦难的普通民众，能够迎来前所未有的繁荣。

The social changes produced by the two revolutions were traumatic. But the first urban, industrial nation held out the promise that the common people, who had lived so close to subsistence and had suffered so much, would be brought to an unimagined prosperity.

C中国文明在很长一段时间内都比欧洲文明更为先进。欧洲直接或间接地从中国获得了印刷术、造纸术、指南针、火药和运河船闸。然而，欧洲却是第一个实现经济持续增长并最终迎来工业革命的地方。同样在欧洲，代表制政府和个人权利——这些现代性的其他标志——也率先发展起来。欧洲究竟有何特别之处？

CHINESE CIVILISATION WAS FOR A long period more advanced than European. From China directly or indirectly Europe acquired printing, paper-making, the compass, gunpowder and locks for canals. Yet it was in Europe that steady economic growth first occurred and then the Industrial Revolution. And it was in Europe that representative government and individual rights, those other hallmarks of modernity, first developed. What is it about Europe?

1480年，明朝皇帝颁布法令，禁止海外探险和贸易；继续进行贸易的商人被视为走私者，军队被派往各地摧毁他们的商铺，焚毁他们的船只。欧洲君主从未拥有或使用过如此强大的权力，也无人能够承担如此自我限制的法令。在欧洲，君主们身处一个由众多敌对国家组成的网络之中；而中国皇帝的优势——或者说陷阱——在于他没有与之匹敌的对手。欧洲各国之间的竞争促使它们进行海外扩张。

In 1480 the Ming emperor of China ruled that overseas exploration and trade were forbidden; merchants who continued to trade were declared smugglers and troops were sent to destroy their settlements and burn their boats. No European king ever claimed or used such powers and no king could afford such a self-denying ordinance. In Europe kings operated in a network of rival states; the Chinese emperor had the advantage—or the trap—of possessing no rivals of equal power to his own. The rivalry of states in Europe helped to impel them to overseas expansion.

西欧罗马帝国灭亡后，再也没有哪个单一政权能够控制整个领土。试想一下，如果一个政权像满清征服中国、莫卧儿帝国征服印度、奥斯曼帝国征服中东那样征服了罗马，会是怎样一番景象？通过征服，他们成为了新领土的主人。然而，征服罗马的是各个日耳曼部落，他们彼此敌对，对罗马的掌控力微乎其微。与其说他们征服了罗马帝国，不如说他们发现帝国正在脚下瓦解。他们缺乏治理稳定国家的经验，也无法维持罗马帝国的稳定。罗马的税收机制。他们违背了政府的一项普遍原则，建立起无法征税的国家。

After the fall of the Roman Empire in western Europe, no single power has ever again controlled the whole territory. Imagine if a single power had conquered Rome as the Manchus did in China, the Mughals in India and the Ottomans in the Middle East. By the act of conquest, they become masters of their new realm. The conquerors of Rome were various German tribes who were rivals to each other. They were masters of very little. They did not so much conquer the empire as discover that it was melting away beneath their feet. They had no experience of governing a settled state and could not maintain the Roman machinery of tax-gathering. They defied one of the universals of government by running states that were unable to tax.

欧洲历史很大程度上源于这一开端。当时的政府对人民的控制力最为薄弱，必须付出艰辛的努力才能赢得人民的效忠。为了扩张权力，政府必须提供良好的治理——即君主的和平。他们不能像亚洲和中东的许多帝国和王国那样，仅仅依靠一套征收税赋和贡品的机制就能实现统治。

Much of European history springs from this founding moment. Governments had the weakest hold on their people; they had to struggle and work hard to claim their allegiance. They had to offer good government—the king’s peace—in return for extending their power. They could not simply run an apparatus for collecting tax and tribute as did so many empires and kingdoms in Asia and the Middle East.

几个世纪以来，对国王统治的威胁主要来自他最强大的臣民——拥有土地的贵族。他们最终被征服，但他们凭借自身的实力，为自己和所有人赢得了私有财产的安全保障。并非所有东西都属于国王：这正是欧洲自由和繁荣的基石。

For centuries the threat to the king’s control came from the mightiest of his subjects, the landed nobility. They were eventually subdued but they had been strong enough on their own ground to gain for themselves and everyone else the security of private property. Not everything is the king’s: this is the foundation of European liberty and its prosperity.

为了压制贵族，国王们依靠城镇中的商人、贸易商和银行家，这些人为国王的官僚机构提供贷款和人员，他们的财富也可以被征税。欧洲君主以规律且适度的方式征税，以免杀鸡取卵。亚洲国家的统治者则更为专断，他们会征收惩罚性税款，或者在经济拮据时直接没收商人和贸易商的货物。欧洲君主必须谨慎行事，因为他们只是众多国家之间微妙平衡的竞争中的一员，而那些被逼到绝境的商人可能会迁往敌对国家。他们必须关注经济增长和新技术，尽管主要关注的是战争技术，但无论过去还是现在，国防开支都会带来巨大的衍生效益。除了谨慎之外，他们还铭记着罗马帝国的教训，以及基督教君主肩负的义务，即防止暴政和过度放纵——而这些在亚洲王国比在欧洲王国更为常见。

To subdue the nobility the kings relied on the merchants, traders and bankers of their towns, who provided loans and personnel for their bureaucracy and whose wealth could be taxed. European monarchs taxed in a regular, moderate way so that they did not kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Rulers of Asian states were more arbitrary, levying punitive taxation or simply confiscating the goods of merchants and traders if they were hard up. European monarchs were obliged to be prudent because they were one player in a finely balanced rivalry of states and merchants pressed too hard could decamp to the rival states. They had to be interested in economic growth and in new technology, albeit chiefly the technology for war, but then as now defence spending had large spin-offs. Beyond prudence, they had the memory of the Roman Empire and the obligations cast upon a Christian prince to help keep them from tyranny and complete self-indulgence, which were much more commonly displayed in Asian kingdoms than in European.

随着君主们征服旧贵族，他们转而扶持一个新兴的、充满活力的阶级：城市资产阶级。在君主权力较弱之时，他们允许城镇自治，随着财富的增长，这一让步也变得愈发重要。与能够统领军队、在城堡中自卫的贵族相比，资产阶级显得和平且无害。尽管贵族们桀骜不驯，但他们构成了社会秩序的一部分，而国王则是这个社会秩序的天然领袖；资产阶级及其生活方式不需要国王，而且从长远来看，资产阶级对国王统治的 干扰比贵族更大。

As monarchs subdued the old nobility, they became patrons of a new, dynamic class: the urban bourgeoisie. When monarchs were still weak, they had allowed towns the right to govern themselves, which became a more significant concession as their wealth grew. Compared with nobles, who could command armed men and defend themselves in castles, the bourgeoisie seemed peaceful and unthreatening. But however fractious nobles were, they formed part of the social order of which kings were the natural heads; the bourgeoisie and their way of life had no need of kings and in the long run were much more disturbing to kingly rule than the nobility.

君主制初期权力较弱，但在英国却是个例外。英国的君主受到议会的制约，议会制度源于中世纪，当时国王必须征求臣民的意见。即使在法国——这个以绝对君主制闻名的国家——国王也并非拥有绝对的统治权。为了巩固王国，他不得不做出许多让步和特殊协议。法国的三级会议虽然不再召开，但在边远省份仍然存在着小型三级会议，并在18世纪80年代否决了国王的税收改革举措。当国王的改革尝试失败后，他被迫恢复了三级会议，而这一举措实际上是迫于压力，因为改革者们受到了英国议会制政府的启发。在中欧，也就是今天的德国和意大利，由于皇帝和教皇争夺权力，没有一位君主能够建立一个强大的国家。这里曾存在众多实际上独立的国家：城市、城邦和公国，是欧洲权力分散的极端例子。这些小型国家为文艺复兴和宗教改革奠定了基础，而这两次运动彻底改变了整个欧洲。

From their weak beginnings monarchs gained in power, except in England where monarchs were tamed by the parliament, an institution that survived from medieval times when kings were obliged to consult their great subjects. Even in France, the most renowned of the so-called absolute monarchies, the king did not command everywhere. To put his kingdom together he had needed to make many concessions and special deals. The Estates General of France no longer met but miniature Estates General survived in the outer provinces and played a part in rejecting the king’s moves in the 1780s to reform the taxation system. And when his attempts failed he was forced to revive the Estates General of France, a move imposed on him because the reformers were inspired by the English example of parliamentary government. In central Europe, in what is now Germany and Italy, no monarch had established a strong state, a result of the emperor and the pope contesting for power. Here there was a multitude of virtually independent states: cities, city-states and princedoms, the extreme case of the dispersal of power in Europe. These mini-states provided the base for the Renaissance and Reformation, which transformed the whole of Europe.

尽管欧洲四分五裂，但它仍是一个统一的文明，在中世纪及之后被称为基督教世界。在宗教改革之前，教会是超越国界的普世机构。教会有时试图控制国家，但尽管君主有义务捍卫信仰，他们并不认为这意味着他们必须始终服从教会的命令。皇帝与教皇之间的冲突是教会与国家之间持续紧张关系的最显著、最持久的例证，也是权力分散的又一例证。

Though Europe was divided it was one civilisation, known in medieval times and beyond as Christendom. Until the Reformation the church was the universal institution crossing all boundaries. It sometimes had ambitions to control the states, but though kings were obliged to be defenders of the faith, they did not see this as obliging them always to obey the commands of the church. The clash between emperor and pope was the most spectacular and long-lasting example of the constant tension between church and state, a further instance of the dispersal of power.

基督教世界的主流文化由教会掌控。教会既是其圣书《圣经》的守护者，也是古希腊罗马学术的守护者。中世纪的学者们将二者融合，构建出一套连贯的神学体系。教会的圣典几乎对教会本身只字未提——而教会本身却是一个仿照罗马统治模式建立的复杂机构——它从罗马传承下来的学问，实际上却是异教作家的作品。在宗教改革和文艺复兴时期，这些矛盾彻底爆发。

The common high culture of Christendom was controlled by the church. It was the guardian of its holy book, the Bible, and of the learning of Greece and Rome. In the Middle Ages the scholars had woven both together to produce a coherent theology. The vulnerability of the church lay in its holy book being virtually silent on the church itself—an elaborate structure modelled on Roman rule—and in the learning it preserved from Rome being the work of pagan authors. In the Reformation and Renaissance, the contradictions broke open.

在中国，权力毫无疑问地集中在皇帝手中，儒家文化为帝制提供了支撑。儒家思想指导个人和公共行为，深深植根于社会和国家之中。所有官僚和非官僚都精通儒家思想，而有志成为官员的人必须通过儒家科举考试。

In China, power was centred unequivocally in the emperor and the high culture of Confucianism supported imperial rule. Confucianism was a guide to individual and public behaviour and was embedded in society and the state. All who ruled officially and unofficially were well versed in it and would-be bureaucrats had to pass examinations in it.

在欧洲，权力分散，高雅文化多元融合，并未与世俗统治紧密相连。中国人才智过人，但他们的才智从未失控；他们的创新也从未造成根本性的破坏。欧洲社会的开放性由来已久。近代以来，其经济的活力和思想生活的蓬勃发展，都源于没有单一权力主导，从而避免了其走向繁荣或衰败。欧洲多元的文化遗产得以充分发掘和拓展；古希腊对数学的信仰在科学革命中得以实现，进而为技术创新奠定了新的基础。

In Europe, power was dispersed and the high culture was composite and not firmly tethered to secular rule. The Chinese were very clever but their cleverness could never get out of control; the innovations were never fundamentally disturbing. The openness of European society goes a long way back. The dynamism of its economy and the turmoil of its intellectual life in the modern period derive from the fact that no single power was in charge, shaping it for good or ill. Its diverse inheritance could be fully explored and extended; the Greek faith in mathematics was realised during the Scientific Revolution, which in turn created a new basis for technological innovation.

经济史学家们常常提出这样一个问题：为什么欧洲率先实现了工业化？仿佛其他社会也走在同样的道路上，只是欧洲率先达到了目标。帕特里夏·克罗恩（本书的许多观点都源于她的思想）则提出了另一个问题：欧洲真的是第一个实现工业化的国家吗？还是说这只是个偶然？她毫不怀疑，欧洲的工业化只是个偶然。

Economic historians pose the question of why Europe was the first to industrialise, as if other societies were on the same trajectory and Europe reached the goal first. Patricia Crone, whose ideas have shaped so much of this book, asks the question: was Europe first or was it a freak? She has no doubt it was a freak.